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RIP VAN WINKLE 
iND OTHER AMERICAN ESSAYS 

THE VOYAGE 

AND OTHER ENGLISH ESSAYS 

Iff 
WASHINGTON IRVING 





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CET^c KitjersiDe ^Literature ^ttita 

ESSAYS FROM 

THE SKETCH BOOK 

BY 

WASHINGTON IRVING 

WITH INTRODUCTION, EXPLANATORY NOTES 
AND QUESTIONS AND TOPICS FOR STUDY 

BY 

A. B. De MILLE 




HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

BOSTON • NEW YORK • CHICAGO • DALLAS 
ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 



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CONTENTS 



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Chronological Table ^ - * iii 

Biographical Sketch of Irving vii 

Map of the Regions Mentioned xviii 

Rip Van Winkle 7 

Legend of Sleepy Hollow 32 

Philip of Pokanoket 76 

Explanatory Notes, with Questions and Topics for 

Study i 



The selections from "The Sketch Book" included in 
this number of the Riverside Literature Series are used by 
permission of, and by arrangement with, Messrs. G. P. Put- 
nam's Sons, the authorized publishers of Irving's works. 





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COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT, 1 891, BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 


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-I- I 



WASHINGTON IRVING. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

Washington Irving — "the first ambassador whom the 
New World of Letters sent to the Old" — was born in New 
York on April 3, 1783. His mother named him after George 
Washington, and a pleasant anecdote connects his childhood 
with the great man whose biographer he was to be in later 
years. One morning, as his Scotch nurse had him out for a 
walk, she saw the President enter a shop. The nurse hastened 
in with her charge, and said: " Please, your honor, here's a 
bairn was named for you." Washington turned and, laying 
his hand on the child's head, gave him his blessing. 

Bom of well-to-do parents, Irving was the youngest of a 
large family ; his formative years were passed under the in- 
fluence of a cultured home, and with plenty of congenial 
companionship. The surroundings of his childish days thus 
were fortunate, and no doubt tended to mould his mind and 
character for an appreciation of the finer things of life. His 
boyhood was in no sense remarkable; he was fond of reading, 
Robinson Crusoe and The Arabian Nights being among 
his favorite books, while a youthful inclination towards 
travel and adventure seems to have been stimulated by a 
History of the Civil Wars of Granada, and stirred still further 
by a set of voyages called The World Displayed. He at- 
tended school until the age of sixteen, when for some reason 
he declined to complete his education in the normal way by 
following his two brothers William and Peter to Columbia 
College; instead, he entered a lawyer's office. 



viii WASHINGTON IRVING. 

But the study of the law did not very closely engage his 
attention; his tastes lay outside the walls of the office. 
"How wistfully," he wrote afterwards of this period of his 
life, ** would I wander about the pier-heads in fine weather, 
and watch the parting ships, bound to distant climes; with 
what longing eyes would I gaze after their lessening sails, and 
waft myself in imagination to the ends of the earth." These 
restless cravings were partially satisfied by two journeys — 
one up the Hudson to Albany; the other north as far as 
Montreal and Quebec. They were venturous expeditions; 
discomfort and difficulty w^ere all in the day's work, while 
dangers came unsought. But Irving from the first inured 
himself to the hardships inseparable from travel at a time 
when the voyager was lucky to reach Albany in half a week, 
and when the journey from New York to Boston occupied 
six days. He was by nature, and became still more by train- 
ing, an excellent traveller. *'For my own part," he said, 
"I endeavor to take things as they come, with cheerfulness; 
when I cannot get a dinner to suit my taste, I endeavor to 
get a taste to suit my dinner." 

Not only did he begin at this time to gratify his desire for 
travel, but he entered also — tentatively and insecurely — 
into the field of literature. He wrote a few essays, signed 
'* Jonathan Oldstyle," and published them in a journal 
owned by his brother Peter. They mildly satirized New 
York life after the manner of the eighteenth-century essay- 
ists in England and show neither more nor less merit than 
might be expected of a young man of nineteen. Their chief 
value lies in the fact that they indicate a practical interest 
in writing. 

During his youth, Irving's health had never been very 
good. With the hope that change might help him, his 
brothers sent him to Europe, where he spent the years from 
1804 to 1806. The experience was a delightful one, despite 
the delays and difficulties which fell to the lot of the way- 
farer by sailing-ship and stage-coach. He visited Sicily and 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH, ix 

Italy; he wandered leisurely through France, Holland, and 
England. "The young American traveller" was most cor- 
dially received; he possessed a geniality of temper which 
everywhere won him friends. At the same time, his saga- 
cious powers of observation and his keen sense of humor 
enabled him to grasp and store up impressions which later 
were to form the inspiration for much of his writing. He 
came home again completely restored to health. 

The legal studies of his earlier years had been so far suc- 
cessful that soon after his return he was admitted to the bar 
and taken into partnership with his brother John. It cannot 
be said, however, that he seriously practised his profession. 
A little law and a great deal of literature, together with the 
enjoyment of the society of his native city, carried him 
comfortably through four years, at the end of which he 
joined his brothers Ebenezer and Peter in the large hard- 
ware importing business which they had built up. There was 
an understanding that he should be connected with the firm 
as a "silent" partner, and, while sharing in the profits, 
should be called upon to do merely a nominal portion of the 
work. Thus he would have plenty of opportunity to follow 
his literary tastes, with which his brothers were thoroughly 
in sympathy. Under this kindly arrangement, he became 
well-known as a man about town — a man of literary prom- 
ise and one who had seen the world. 

As a result came the publication of Salmagundi^ a maga- 
zine in which he was associated with James Kirke Paulding 
and William Irving. It lived for about a year. "Our inten- 
tion," ran the editorial announcement, "is simply to instruct 
the young, reform the old, correct the town, and castigate 
the age." The matter was humorous and original enough, 
and made a stir in New York; the manner was pleasantly 
reminiscent of Addison's Spectator papers. 

His next venture was the book which established his repu- 
tation — A History of New York, by Diedrich Knickerbocker. 
Intended at first as a parody upon a pompous narrative 



X WASHINGTON IRVING. 

called A Picture of New York, the History soon outgrew the 
limits of a mere imitation and developed into a comic history 
of the city under Dutch rule. The book was heralded by 
humorous advertisements in the newspapers, which an- 
nounced the disappearance of **a small elderly gentleman, 
dressed in an old black coat and cocked hat, called Knicker- 
bocker." He was last seen on the Albany stage, and had left 
at his lodgings nothing but a "very curious kind of written 
book,'' which was to be published to pay his board bill. 
Introduced in this original way, the History appeared in 
1809 and created a sensation. It dealt with characters, 
places, and situations which were familiar to every New 
Yorker of the day, it was conceived in a serio-comic vein of 
amusing irony that piqued the curiosity, and it was written 
in a style already marked by the distinction afterwards so 
characteristic of Irving's work. Some of the old families, 
whose sense of dignity was greater than their sense of humor, 
felt aggrieved at supposed slights on their ancestors; but 
the large majority thoroughly enjoyed the unshackled treat- 
ment of history and tradition, and the good-humored satire. 

While Irving was completing the History, he suffered a 
loss which deeply influenced his whole life. This was the 
death of Matilda Hoffman, the young girl to whom he was 
engaged. Long afterwards when time had soothed — though 
it could not take away — his sorrow, he wrote: "For years 
I could not talk on the subject of this hopeless regret; I 
could not even mention her name; but her image was con- 
tinually before me, and I dreamt of her incessantly." He 
never married, he never forgot; and to this ineffaceable 
grief we may probably trace the touch of melancholy which 
is seen all through his writings. 

We have now to consider the most important period of his 
life — the seventeen years from 1815 to 1832, which were 
spent abroad. In 1815 he went to Liverpool to take over the 
conduct of the English branch of the business from his 
brother Peter, whose health had broken down. For a time 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH, xi 

the young author devoted himself to the difficult task of 
reviving a firm which (through no fault of the Irvings) had 
fallen on evil days. His efforts — honestly and unsparingly 
put forth — were in vain; the house failed, and in 1818, 
thrown upon his own resources, he undertook the duty of 
helping the brothers who had so generously helped him in 
the past. A step long contemplated was now forced on him : 
he went to London to take up literature as a profession. 

The decision was a wise one. Not often has a change made 
necessary by failure in one field been followed so soon by 
enduring success in another. In 1819 there was published 
in New York the first number of The Sketch Book, by "Geof- 
frey Crayon." Six other numbers followed within two years 
and, in 1821, an edition was issued in England. Its popu- 
larity was immediate and lasting; Irving found himself suc- 
cessful beyond his expectations, with his future clearlj^ 
marked out before him. 

It is interesting to note that the English publication of 
The Sketch Book was made under the kindly auspices of Sir 
Walter Scott, whom Irving had met at Abbotsford on the 
occasion of his first journey abroad. Knowing that his Amer- 
ican friend had suffered a reverse of fortune, Scott, with prac- 
tical and characteristic good feeling, offered him a position as 
editor of a projected magazine in Edinburgh. When Irving 
declined this appointment, Scott at once entered on other 
plans. **I am sure of one thing," he wrote, *'that you have 
only to be known to the British public to be admired by 
them, and I would not say so unless I really was of that 
opinion. I trust to be in London about the middle of the 
month, and promise myself great pleasure in again shaking 
you by the hand." Irving decided to publish on his own 
account, and did so through an obscure bookseller. The 
bookseller failed. "At this juncture," says Irving, "Scott 
arrived in London. I called to him for help, as I was sticking 
in the mire, and more propitious than Hercules, he put his 
shoulder to the wheel." A new publisher was quickly 



Xii WASHINGTON IRVING. 

found — the best in London — and the Sketch Book, which 
Scott had termed "positively beautiful," was safely launched. 
The whole episode was typical of the gererous Scotchman; 
Irving's tribute does credit to both the friends: 

Thus, under the kind and genial auspices of Sir Walter Scott, I 
began my literary career in Europe; and I feel that I am but dis- 
charging, in a trifling degree, my debt of gratitude to that golden 
hearted man in acknowledging my indebtedness to him. — But who 
of his literary contemporaries ever applied to him for aid or comfort 
that did not experience the most prompt, generous, and effectual 
assistance? 

His next works w^ere Bracebridge Hall and Tales of a 
Traveller y both published before 1825. The former contains 
a charming series of sketches of life at an old English coun- 
try-seat; the latter is a collection of miscellaneous stories, 
supposed to be told at an inn on the Rhine. Both are 
** sketch-books," though neither possesses quite the same 
merit as the original volume. All three, however, show a 
style of finished excellence, and the mastery of a new lit- 
erary form — the short story. 

After some ten years abroad, spent chiefly in England, he 
felt the need for fresh inspiration. From early days the 
romantic history and the picturesque legends of Spain had 
appealed to his imagination; he was definitely attracted to 
Madrid in 1826 by the suggestion that he should translate a 
Spanish book about Columbus. Attached nominally to the 
American Legation, he had every opportunity for research. 
He remained in Spain for three years, and collected material 
lor two histories later published — The Life of Columbus 
and The Voyages of the Companions of Columbus. "What a 
country it is for a traveller," he said, ** where the most miser- 
able inn is as full of adventures as an enchanted castle, and 
every meal is in itself an achievement." 

His interest next was strongly drawn to the part played 
by the Moors in Spanish history. The Conquest of Granada 
tells the story of the ten years' war between the Moors and 



• •• 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xiii 

the Spaniards, which led to the downfall of the Moorish 
dominion after seven centuries. Another book. Tales of 
the Alhambra, grew out of a three months' residence in the 
Alhambra, the ancient fortified palace of the Moorish kings; 
an experience which gave him great delight. "Here I am, 
nestled in one of the most remarkable, romantic, and deli- 
cious spots in the world. It absolutely appears to me like 
a dream, or as if I am spell-bound in some fairy palace." 
These feelings beautifully color the Tales of the Alhambray 
which form a Spanish sketch book, steeped in the atmosphere 
of old romance. 

In spite of his preoccupation with literary work, Irving's 
position at the Legation in Madrid would seem to have been 
more than a sinecure, for in 1829 he was appointed Secretary 
to the American Legation in London. He was welcomed in 
England with the friendliness which he everywhere com- 
manded — "he came amongst us," says Thackeray, "bring- 
ing the kindest sympathy, the most artless, smiling good- 
will." And more than friendliness awaited him. The Royal 
Society of Literature presented him with a gold medal, and 
Oxford University conferred the Degree of D.C.L. — highest 
in its gift — in recognition of his accomplishment as a 
writer. It is pleasant to know that with all the fame of these 
years there had come also moderate wealth; he was now in 
comfortable circumstances and his invalid brother was pro- 
vided for. 

He returned to New York in 1832, and was greeted with 
tributes of admiration and affection which were sorely trying 
to a man of his natural modesty. Many changes had come 
about during his long absence. New York had grown almost 
out of his knowledge. The West had been widely explored 
and settled. Eager to see the new lands beyond the Missis- 
sippi — an unknown wilderness in the days of his youth — 
he joined a Government Commission to the Indian tribes of 
the great plains. His experiences are recounted in A Tour of 
the Prairies. 



xiv WASHINGTON IRVING. 

ITpon coming back from the West he purchased a small 
farm on the Hudson near Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow. 
The place with its; old stone cottage he named "Sunnyside," 
and realized at last after so many years of roving the desire 
which he had expressed long ago: *'If ever I should wish for 
a retreat whither I might steal from the world and its dis- 
tractions, and dream quietly away the remnant of a troubled 
life, I know of none more promising than this little valley.'" 
Here for some years he enjoyed a life of "lettered ease, 
a loved and honored figure. He published Legends of the 
Conquest of Spain, and Recollections of Abbotsford and New- 
stead Abbey — the latter giving his memories of Scott and 
Byron — and edited The Journal of Captain Bonneville and 
Astoria, an account of the attempt of John Jacob Astor to 
found a settlement at the mouth of the Columbia River. He 
was interested, too, in The Knickerbocker Magazine, founded 
in 1832 by Charles Fenno Hoffman, and the forerunner of 
Harper's and The Century, Among its contributors, beside 
Irving, were Bryant, Halleck, Willis, Boker and Bayard 
Taylor, a notable group of writers who formed what is often 
spoken of as the "Knickerbocker School." 

A letter written by Charles Dickens about this time 
reflects very justly the fame and personality of Irving. 

My dear Sir, 

There is no man in the world who could have given me the heart- 
felt pleasure you have, by your kind note of the thirteenth of last 
month. There is no living writer, and there are very few among the 
dead, whose approbation I should feel so proud to earn. And with 
everything you have written upon my shelves, and in my thoughts, 
and in my heart of hearts, I may honestly and truly say so. If you 
could know how earnestly I write this, you would be glad to read it 
— as I hope you will be, faintly guessing at the warmth of the hand 
I autograph ically hold out to you over the broad Atlantic. 

I wish I could find in your welcome letter some hint of an inten- 
tion to visit England. ... I should love to go with you — as I have 
gone, God knows how often — into Little Britain, and Eastcheap, 
and Green Arbour Court, and Westminster Abbey. I should like to 
travel with you, outside the last of the coaches down to Bracebridge 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xv 

flail. It would make my heart glad to compare notes with you . . . 
about all those delightful places and people that I used to walk 
about and dream of in the daytime, when a very small and not over- 
particularly-taken-care-of little boy. I have . . . much to hear 
concerning Moorish legend, and poor unhappy Boabdil. Diedrich 
Knickerbocker I have worn to death in my pocket, and yet I should 
show you his mutilated carcase with a joy past all expression. 

My dear Washington Irving, I cannot thank you enough for youj 
cordial and generous praise, or tell you what deep and lasting grati- 
fication it has given me. 

When Dickens made his first visit to America in 1842, the 
two men met. "Washington Irving is a great fellow," wrote 
the brilliant young novelist. "We have laughed most 
heartily together. He is just the man he ought to be." 

The quiet life at Sunnyside was at last broken in upon. 
With Irving's intimate knowledge of European affairs, it 
was only natural that he should be called on for further 
diplomatic service. In 1842 he received appointment as 
Minister to Spain. The position came unsought; he had 
already refused several other offers of civic or national 
responsibility. But the call seemed imperative; he pos- 
sessed, moreover, a close acquaintance with Spanish life and 
enjoyed the friendliest relations with the Spanish people. 
He accepted the post, therefore, and during the next four 
years discharged his duties with marked success at a period 
of considerable political unrest. 

Thirteen years remained to him, which were passed hap- 
pily at Sunnyside — the peaceful closing of a long and fortu- 
nate career. Up to the very end his pen was busy. He pub- 
lished in 1849 a Life of Goldsmith, and in 1850 Mahomet and 
his Successors, the last of the studies in subjects connected 
with Spanish history which had so strongly engaged his 
interest. Wolf erf s Roost, sl collection of occasional sketches, 
appeared in 1855. The monumental Life of Washington, 
which he himself regarded as his greatest contribution to the 
literature of his country, was completed in four volumes, the 
last appearing in the year of his death. He died at his home 
on the Hudson on November 28, 1859. 



xvi WASHINGTON IRVING. 

The period of seventy-six years covered by the life of 
Irving was marked by great changes. The development of 
steam transportation transformed the slow-moving world of 
his youth. The narrow limits of the thirteen original states 
extended west to the Pacific and south to the Rio Grande. 
In literature, notable writers had arisen — Poe, Longfellow, 
Lowell, Hawthorne, and others. The "irrepressible con- 
flict" was at hand, which was to free his country from the 
burden of slavery — a national institution in his boyhood. 
But we look in vain through the works of Irving for the 
reflection of these momentous times, or for any reference to 
the questions of the day. He stands aloof; his interests lie 
rather with the past; he is concerned with the romance and 
the beauty of times gone by. This attitude is the more 
remarkable when we consider his wide acquaintance with 
men and cities, and remember that all his literary friends 
lived and moved in the full stream of contemporary affairs. 

Yet these same friends found in him no lack of breadth or 
humanity. To them he was the dean of American letters — 
a man whom they delighted to honor. Nor do we see in 
Irving any want of human sympathy. If the bent of his 
genius led him away from the fume and stress of modern 
living, we must remember that he laid the foundations of 
American literature and breathed through all his work the 
ideals of purity, chivalry, kindly humor and good taste. If 
he did not stand in the forefront of the battle with the 
reformers of the day, he none the less drew upon a fund of 
human kindness and exercised a practical helpfulness quite 
as useful and effective as many a more pretentious creed. 

A typical incident will illustrate the point. He had 
planned for many years to tell the story of the Spanish con- 
quest of Mexico. By taste and training he was unusually 
well fitted for the task, and had collected a mass of material 
bearing upon the period. When actually at work on the 
opening chapters, he learned that William Hickling Prescott, 
a young and unknown writer, had taJken up the same sub- 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xvii 

ject. Irving at once relinquished his own plans and laid 
£side the dream of years in order that the new historian 
should have his chance. 

The best work of Irving is undoubtedly found in the four 
"sketch books" — the original volume of that name, to- 
gether with Bracebridge Hall, Tales of a Traveller, and The 
Alhambra, The Sketch Book itself, most widely known of all 
his works, best represents the genius of the writer. The 
form was excellently adapted to his needs. The volume con- 
tains, in Rij) Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, 
the first artistic presentation of the modern short story; in 
essays such as Westminster Abbey and The Stage Coach the 
beauty of style and the fine qualities of observation, imagina- 
tion and humor which distinguish him as the most charming 
of American essayists. He was the first of a remarkable 
group of American historians, among whom Prescott, Mot- 
ley and Parkman stand preeminent. Here he founded a 
noble tradition, and his own writings in the field — while not, 
perhaps., evincing the qualities of the trained and critical 
scholar — possess high excellence in respect of insight and 
literary art. 

The fine tribute of Thackeray, written after living's 
death, may fittingly close this sketch: 

The good Irving, the peaceful, the friendly, had no place for 
bitterness in his heart, and no scheme but kindness. Received in 
England with extraordinary tenderness and friendship (Scott, 
Byron, Southey, a hundred others have borne witness to their liking 
for him) he was a messenger of goodwill and peace. ... Of his works, 
was not his life the best part.^ In society a delightful example of 
complete gentlemanhood ; quite unspoiled by prosperity; eager to 
acknowledge every contemporary's merit; always kind and affable 
to the younger members of his calling; in his professional bargains 
and mercantile dealings delicately honest and grateful; one of the 
most charming masters of our lighter language; to men of letters 
doubly dear, not for his wit and genius merely, but as an exemplar 
of goodness, probity and pure life. 



INTRODUCTION TO RIP VAN WINKLE. 

The story of Rip Van Winkle purported to have been 
written by Diedrich Knickerbocker, who was a humorous in- 
vention of Irving's, and whose name was familiar to the pub- 
lic as the author of A History of New York. The History 
was published in 1809, but it was ten years more before 
the first number of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon^ 
Gent, was published. This number, which contained Bip 
Van Winkle, was, like succeeding numbers, written by Ir- 
ving in England and sent home to America for publication. 
He laid the scene of the story in the Kaatskills, but he drew 
upon his imagination and the reports of others for the scen- 
ery, not visiting the spot until 1833. The story is not ab- 
solutely new ; the fairy tale of The Sleeping Beauty in the 
Wood has the same theme ; so has the story of Epimenides 
of Crete, who lived in the sixth or seventh century before 
Christ. He was said to have fallen asleep in a cave when 
a boy, and to have awaked at the end of fifty-seven years, 
his soul, meanwhile, having been growing in stature. There 
is the legend also of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, Chris- 
tian martyrs who were walled into a cave to which they had 
fled for refuge, and there were miraculously preserved for 
two centuries. Among the stories in which the Harz Moun- 
tains of Germany are so prolific is one of Peter Klaus, a 
goatherd who was accosted one day by a young man who 
silently beckoned him to follovv, and led him to a secluded 
spot, where he found twelve knights playing, voiceless, at 
skittles. He saw a can of wine which was very fragrant, 
and, drinking of it, was thrown into a deep sleep, from 
which he did not wake for twenty years. The story giv<» 



6 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

incidents of his awaking and of the changes which he found 
in tlie village to which he returned. This story, which w^as 
published with others in 1800, may very likely have been 
the immediate suggestion to Irving, who has taken nearly 
the same framework. The humorous additions which he 
has made, and the grace with which he has invested the 
tale, have caused his story to supplant earlier ones in the 
popular mind, so that Rip Van Winkle has passed into 
familiar speech, and allusions to him are clearly understood 
by thousands who have never read Irving's story. The 
recent dramatizing of the story, though following the outr 
line only, has done much to fix the conception of the char* 
acter. The story appeals very directly to a common senti- 
ment of curiosity as to the future, which is not far removed 
from what some have regarded as an instinct of the human 
mind pointing to personal immortality. The name Van 
Winkle was happily chosen by Irving, but not invented by 
him. The printer of the Sketch Book, for one, bore the 
name. The name Knickerbocker, also, is among the Dutch 
names, but Irving's use of it has made it representative. In 
The Author's Apology, which he prefixed to a new edition 
of the History of New York, he says : "I find its very 
name become a ' household word,' and used to give the 
home stamp to everything recommended for popular accep- 
tation, such as Knickerbocker societies ; Knickerbocker in- 
surance companies ; Knickerbocker steg-mboats ; Knicker-> 
bocker omnibuses, Knickerbocker bread, and Knickerbocker 
ice ; and . . . New Yorkers of Dutch descent priding them 
selves upon being ' genuine Knickerbockers.' " 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 

A POSTHUMOUS WRITING OF DIEDRIGH KNICKERBOCKER. 

By Woden, God of Saxons, 

From whence comes Wensday, that is Wodensday. 

Truth is a thing that ever I will keep 

Unto thylke day in which I creep into 

My sepulchre. Caetwbight.* 

The following tale was found among the papers of the late 
Diedrich Knickerbocker, an old gentleman of New York, who 
was very curious in the Dutch history of the province, and the 
manners of the descendants from its primitive settlers. His his- 
torical researches, however, did not lie so much among books 
as among men ; for the former are lamentably scanty on his 
favorite topics ; whereas he found the old burghers, and still 
more their wives, rich in that legendary lore so invaluable to 
true history. Whenever, therefore, he happened upon a genuine 
Dutch family, snugly shut up in its low-roofed farmhouse under 
a spreading sycamore, he looked upon it as a little clasped vol- 
ume of black-letter, and studied it with the zeal of a book-worm. 

The result of all these researches was a history of the province 
during the reign of the Dutch governors, which he published 
some years since. There have been various opinions as to the 
literary character of his work, and, to tell the truth, it is not a 
whit better than it should be. Its chief merit is its scrupulous 
accuracy, which indeed was a little questioned on its first appear- 
ance, but has since been completely established ; and it is now 
admitted into all historical collections, as a book of unquestion 
able authority. 

The old gentleman died shortly after the publication of hip 
work, and now that he is dead and gone, it cannot do much harm 

^ William Cartwright, 1611-1643, was a friend and disciple oi 
Ben JoQson, 



8 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

to his memory ^ to say that his time might have been much bet* 
ter employed in weightier labors. He, however, was apt to ride 
his hobby bis own way ; and though it did now and then kick up 
the dust a little in the eyes of his neighbors, and grieve the spirit 
of some friends, for whom he felt the truest deference and affec- 
tion ; yet his errors and follies are remembered " more in sorrow 
than in anger," and it begins to be suspected that he never in- 
tended to injure or offend. But however his memorv may be 
appreciated by critics, it is still held dear by many folk, whose 
good opinion is worth having ; particularly by certain biscuit- 
bakers, who have gone so far as to imprint his likeness on their 
new-year cakes ; ^ and have thus given him a chance for immor- 
tality, almost equal to the being stamped on a Waterloo Medal, 
or a Queen Anne's Farthing.^ 

1 The History of New York had given offence to many old 
New Yorkers because of its saucy treatment of names which 
were held in veneration as those of founders of families, and its 
general burlesque of Dutch character. Among the critics was a 
warm friend of Irving, Gulian C. Verplanck, who in a discourse 
before the New York Historical Society plainly said : " It is 
painful to see a mind, as admirable for its exquisite perception 
of the beautiful as it is for its quick sense of the ridiculous, wast- 
ing the richness of its fancy on an ungrateful theme, and its 
exuberant humor in a coarse caricature." Irving took the cen- 
sure good-naturedly, and as he read Verplanck's words just as 
he was finishing the story of Rip Van Winkle, he gave them this 
playful notice in the introduction. 

^ An oblong seed-cake, still made in New York at New Year's 
time, and of Dutch ongin. 

• There was a popular story that only three farthings were 
struck in Queen Anne's reign ; that two were in public keeping, 
and that the third was no one knew where, but that its lucky 
finder would be able to hold it at an enormous price. As a mat- 
ter of fact there were eight coinings of farthings in the reign of 
Queen Anne, and numismatists do not set a high value on thp 
piece* 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 8 

Whoever has made a voyage up the Hudson must 
remember the Kaatskill Mountains. They are a dis- 
membered branch of the great Appalachian family, 
and are seen away to the west of the river, swelling 
up to a noble height, and lording it over the surround- 
ing country. Every change of season, every change 
of weather, indeed, every hour of the day, produces 
some change in the magical hues and shapes of these 
mountains, and they are regarded by all the good 
wives, far and near, as perfect barometers. When the 
weather is fair and settled, they are clothed in blue 
and purple, and print their bold outlines on the clear 
evening sky ; but sometimes when the rest of the land- 
scape is cloudless they will gather a hood of gray 
vapors about their summits, which, in the last rays of 
the setting sun, will glow and light up like a crown of 
glory. 

At the foot of these fairy ^ mountains, the voyager 
may have descried the light smoke curling up from a 
village, whose shingle-roofs gleam among the trees, 
just where the blue tints of the upland melt away into 
the fresh green of the nearer landscape. It is a little 
village of great antiquity, having been founded by 
some of the Dutch colonists in the early time of the 
province, just about the beginning of the government 
of the good Peter Stuyvesant,^ (y^^J he rest in peace !) 
and there were some of the houses of the original set- 
tlers standing within a few years, built of small yellow 

* A light touch to help the reader into a proper spirit for re- 
ceiving the tale. 

^ Stuyvesant was governor of New Netherlands from 1647 tc 
1664. He plays an important part in Knickerbocker's History of 
New York, as he did in actual life. Until quite recently a pear 
tree was shown on the Bowery, said to have been planted by 
ilim. 



10 WASHINGTON IRVING, 

bricks brought from Holland, having latticed windowa 
and gable fronts, surmounted with weathercocks. 

In that same village, and in one of these very houses 
(which, to tell the precise truth, was sadly time-worn 
and weather-beaten), there lived many years since, 
while the country was yet a province of Great Britain, 
a simple, good-natured fellow, of the name of Rip Van 
Winkle. He was a descendant of the Van Winkles 
who figured so gallantly in the chivalrous days of 
Peter Stuyvesant, and accompanied him to the siege 
of Fort Christina.^ He inherited, however, but little 
of the martial character of his ancestors. I have 
observed that he was a simple, good-natured man ; he 
was, moreover, a kind neighbor, and an obedient hen* 
pecked husband. Indeed, to the latter circumstance 
might be owing that meekness of spirit which gained 
him such universal popularity; for those men are 
most apt to be obsequious and conciliating abroad, 
who are under the discipline of shrews at home. 
Their tempers, doubtless, are rendered pliant and mal* 
leable in the fiery furnace of domestic tribulation ; and 
a curtain lecture is worth all the sermons iij the world 
for teaching the virtues of patience and long-suffering. 
A termagant wife may, therefore, in some respects be 
considered a tolerable blessing, and if so, Rip Van 
Winkle was thrice blessed. 

Certain it is, that he was a great favorite among all 
the good wives of the village, who, as usual with the 
amiable sex, took his part in all family squabbles; 
and never failed, whenever they talked those matters 

1 The Van Winkles appear in the ilhistrious catalogue of 
heroes who accompanied Stuyvesant to Fort Christina, and were 

" Brimful of wrath and cabbage." 

See History of New York, book VI. chap. viii. 



RIP FAN W2NKLE 11 

over in tlieii evening gossipings, to lay all fche blame 
on Dame Van Winkle. The children of the village, 
too, would shout with joy whenever he approached. 
He assisted at their sports, made their playthings, 
taught them to fly kites and shoot marbles, and told 
them long stories of ghosts, witches, and IndianSc 
Whenever he went dodging about the village, he was 
surrounded by a troop of them, hanging on his skirts, 
clambering on his back, and playing a thousand tricks 
on him with impunity ; and not a dog would bark at 
Hm throughout the neighborhood. 

The great error in Rip's composition was an insu< 
perable aversion to all kinds of profitable labor. It 
could not be from the want of assiduity or persever* 
ance ; for he would sit on a wet rock, with a rod as 
long and heavy as a Tartar's lance, and fish all day 
without a murmur, even though he should not be en- 
couraged by a single nibble. He would carry a fowL 
ing-picce on his shoulder for hours together, trudging 
through woods and swamps, and up hill and down 
dale, to shoot a few squirrels or wild pigeons. He 
would never refuse to assist a neighbor, even in the 
roughest toil, and was a foremost man at all country 
frolics for husking Indian corn, or building stone- 
fences ; the women of the village, too, used to employ 
him to run their errands, and to do such little odd 
jobs as their less obliging husbands would not do for 
them. In a word, Eip was ready to attend to any* 
body's business but his own ; but as to doing family 
duty, and keeping his farm in order, he found it im- 
possible. 

In fact, he declared it was of no use to work on his 
farm ; it was the most pestilent little piece of ground 
^ the whole country; everything about it went wrong 



IJd WASHINGTON IRVING. 

and would go wrong, in spite of him. His fences 
were continually falling to pieces ; his cow would either 
go astray or get among the cabbages ; weeds were sure 
to grow quicker in his fields than anywhere else ; the 
rain always made a point of setting in just as he had 
some out-door work to do ; so that though his patri- 
monial estate had dwindled away under his manage 
ment, acre by acre, until there was little more left 
than a mere patch of Indian corn and potatoes, yet it 
was the worst-conditioned farm in the neighborhood. 

His children, too, were as ragged and wild as if 
they belonged to nobody. His son Rip, an urchin be- 
gotten in his own likeness, promised to inherit the 
habits, with the old clothes of his father. He was 
generally seen trooping like a colt at his mother's 
heels, equipped in a pair of his father's cast-off galli- 
gaskins, which he had much ado to hold up with one 
hand, as a fine lady does her train in bad weather. 

Kip Van Winkle, however, was one of those happy 
mortals, of foolish, well-oiled dispositions, who take the 
world easy, eat white bread or brown, whichever can 
be got with least thought or trouble, and would rather 
starve on a penny than work for a pound. If left to 
himself, he would have whistled life away in perfect 
contentment ; but his wife kept continually dinning in 
bis ears about his idleness, his carelessness, and the 
ruin he was bringing on his family. Morning, noon^ 
and night her tongue was incessantly going, and every- 
thing he said or did was sure to produce a torrent of 
household eloquence. Rip had but one way of reply- 
ing to all lectures of the kind, and that, by frequent 
use, had grown into a habit. He shrugged his shoul- 
ders, shook his head, cast up his eyes, but said no 
thing. This, however, aJways provoked a fresh volley 



RIP VAN WINKLE. IS 

from his wife ; so that he was fain to draw oft his 
forces, and take to the outside of the house — the only 
side which, in truth, belongs to a henpecked husband. 

Rip's sole domestic adherent was his dog Wolf, who 
was as much henpecked as his master ; for Dame Van 
Winkle regarded them as companions in idleness, and 
3ven looked upon Wolf with an evil eye, as the cause 
of his master's going so often astray. True it is, in 
all points of spirit befitting an honorable dog, he was 
as courageous an animal as ever scoured the woods — 
but what courage can withstand the ever-during and 
all-besetting terrors of a woman's tongue ? The mo- 
ment Wolf entered the house his crest fell, his tail 
drooped to the ground, or curled between his legs, he 
sneaked about with a gallows air, casting many a side- 
long glance at Dame Van Winkle, and at the least 
flourish of a broomstick or ladle he would fly to the 
door with yelping precipitation. 

Times grew worse and worse with Rip Van Winkle 
as years of matrimony rolled on ; a tart temper never 
mellows with age, and a sharp tongue is the only edged 
tool that grows keener with constant use. For a long 
while he used to console himself, when driven from 
home, by frequenting a kind of perpetual club of the 
sages, philosophers, and other idle personages of the 
village ; which held its sessions on a bench before a 
small inn, designated by a rubicund portrait of His 
Majesty George the Third. Here they used to sit in 
the shade through a long lazy summer's day, talking 
listlessly over village gossip, or telling endless sleepy 
stories about nothing. But it would have been w^orth 
any statesman's money to have heard the profound dis- 
cussions that sometimes took place, when by chance an 
old newspaper fell into their hands from some passing 



14 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

traveller. How solemnly they would listen to the con- 
tents, as drawled out by Derrick Van Bummel, the 
school-master, a dapper learned little man, who was 
not to be daunted by the most gigantic word in the 
dictionary ; and how sagely they would deliberate upon 
public events some months after they had taken place. 

The opinions of this junto were completely con- 
trolled by Nicholas Vedder, a patriarch of the village, 
and landlord of the inn, at the door of which he 
took his seat from morning till night, just moving suf- 
ficiently to avoid the sun and keep in the shade of a 
large tree ; so that the neighbors could tell the hour by 
his movements as accurately as by a sun-dial. It is 
true he was rarely heard to speak, but smoked his pipe 
incessantly. His adherents, however (for every great 
man has his adherents), perfectly understood him, and 
knew how to gather his opinions. When anything 
tliat was read or related displeased him, he was ob- 
served to smoke his pipe vehemently, and to send forth 
short, frequent and angry puffs ; but when pleased, he 
would inhale the smoke slowly and tranquilly, and 
emit it in light and placid clouds ; and sometimes, tak- 
ing the pipe from his mouth, and letting the fragrant 
vapor curl about his nose, would gravely nod his head 
in token of perfect approbation. 

From even this stronghold the unlucky Rip was at 
length routed by his termagant wife, who would sud- 
denly break in upon the tranquillity of the assemblage 
and call the members all to naught ; nor was that 
august personage, Nicholas Vedder himself, sacred 
from the daring tong\:e of this terrible virago, who 
charged him outright with encouraging her husband m 
habits of idleness. 

Poor Rip was at last reduced almost to despair} 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 16 

and his only alternative, to escape from the labor oj 
the farm and clamor of his wife, was to take gun in 
hand and stroll away into the woods. Here he would 
sometimes seat himseK at the foot of a tree, and share 
the contents of his wallet with Wolf, with whom he 
sympathized as a f ellow-suiferer in persecution. " Poor 
Wolf," he would say, ''thy mistress leads thee a dog's 
life of it ; but never mind, my lad, whilst I live thon 
shalt never want a friend to stand by thee ! " Wolf 
would wag his tail, look wistfully in his master's facCj 
and if dogs can feel pity I verily believe he recipra 
cated the sentiment with all his heart. 

In a long ramble of the kind on a fine autumnal 
day. Rip had unconsciously scrambled to one of the 
highest parts of the Kaatskill Mountains. He was 
after his favorite sport of squirrel shooting, and the 
still solitudes had echoed and reechoed with the re- 
ports of his gun. Panting and fatigued, he threw 
himself, late in the afternoon, on a green knoll, cov- 
ered with mountain herbage, that crowned the brow 
of a precipice. From an opening between the trees 
he could overlook all the lower country for many a 
mile of rich woodland. He saw at a distance the 
lordly Hudson, far, far below him, moving on its silent 
but majestic course, with the reflection of a purple 
cloud, or the sail of a lagging bark, here and there 
sleeping on its glassy bosom, and at last losing itself ir 
the blue highlands. 

On the other side he looked down into a deep moun 
tain glen, wild, lonely, and shagged, the bottom filled 
with fragments from the impending cliffs, and scarcely 
lighted by the reflected rays of the setting sun. For 
some time Rip lay musing on this scene ; evening was 
gradually advancing ; the mountains began to throw 



te WASHIIsiOTON IRVING. 

their long blue shadows over the valleys ; he saw that 
it would be dark long before he could reach the village, 
and he heaved a heavy sigh when he thought of en- 
countering the terrors of Dame Van Winkle. 

As he was about to descend, he heard a voice frouj 
a distance, hallooing, " Kip Van Winkle ! Rip Van 
Winkle ! " He looked round, but could see nothing 
but a crow winging its solitary flight across the moun- 
taiuo He thought his fancy must have deceived him, 
and turned again to descend, when he heard the same 
cry ring through the still evening air: "Rip Van 
Winkle ! Eip Van Winkle ! " — at the same time Wolf 
bristled up his back, and giving a low growl, skulked 
to his master's side, looking fearfully down into the 
glen. Rip now felt a vague apprehension stealing 
over him ; he looked anxiously in the same direction, 
and perceived a strange figure slowly toiling up the 
rocks, and bending under the weight of something he 
carried on his back. He was surprised to see any 
human being in this lonely and unfrequented place ; 
but supposing.it to be some one of the neighborhood 
in need of his assistance, he hastened down to yield it. 

On nearer approach he was still more surprised at 
the singularity of the stranger's appearance. He was 
a short, square-built old fellow, with thick bushy hair, 
and a grizzled beard. His dress was of the antique 
Dutch fashion : a cloth jerkin strapped round the 
waist, several pair of breeches, the outer one of ample 
volume, decorated with rows of buttons down the 
sides, and bunches at the knees. He bore on his 
shoulder a stout keg, that seemed full of liquor, and 
made signs for Rip to approach and assist him with 
the load. Though rather shy and distrustful of this 
new acquaintance, Rip complied with his usual alao 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 17 

rity ; and mutually relieving one another, they clam 
bered up a narrow gully, apparently the dry bed of a 
inountain torrent. As they ascended. Rip every no^ 
and then heard long rolling peals like distant thunder, 
that seemed to issue out of a deep ravine, or rathei 
cleft, between lofty rocks, toward which their rugged 
path conducted. He paused for a moment, but sup 
posing it to be the muttering of one of those transient 
thunder>showers which often take place in mountain 
heights, he proceeded. Passing through the ravine, 
they came to a hollow, like a small amphitheatre, sur- 
rounded by perpendicular precipices, over the brinks 
of which impending trees shot their branches, so that 
you only caught glimpses of the azure sky and the 
bright evening cloud. During the whole time Rip and 
his companion had labored on in silence ; for though 
the former marvelled greatly what could be the object 
of carrying a keg of liquor up this wild mountain, yet 
there was something strange and incomprehensible 
about the unknown, that inspired awe and checked 
familiarity. 

^Dn entering the amphitheatre, new objects of wonder 
presented themselves. On a level spot in the centre 
was a company of odd-looking personages playing at 
ninepins. They were dressed in a quaint outlandish 
fashion ; some wore short doublets, others jerkins, with 
long knives in their belts, and most of them had enor 
mous breeches of similar style with that of the guide's* 
Their visages, too, were peculiar; one had a large 
beard, broad face, and small piggish eyes ; the face of 
another seemed to consist entirely of nose, and was 
surmounted by a white sugar-loaf hat, set off with a 
little red cock's tail. They all had beards, of various 
shapes and colors. There was one who seemed to be 



18 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

the commander. He was a stout old gentleman, witn 
a weather-beaten countenance ; he wore a laced doub- 
let, broad belt and hanger, high-crowned hat and 
feather, red stockings, and high-heeled shoes, with 
roses in them. The whole group reminded Rip of the 
figures in an old Flemish painting in the parlor of 
Dominie Van Shaick, the village parson, which had 
been brought over frrm Holland at the time of the 
settlement. 

What seemed particularly odd to Eip was, that 
though these folks were evidently amusing themselves, 
yet they maintained the gravest faces, the most mys- 
terious silence, and were, withal, the most melancholy 
party of pleasure he had ever witnessed. Nothing 
interrupted t)je stillness of the scene but the noise of 
the balls, which, whenever they were rolled, echoed 
along the mountains like rumbling peals of thunder. 

As Rip and his companion approached them, they 
suddenly desisted from their play, and stared at him 
with such fixed, statue-like gaze, and such strange, un- 
couth, lack-lustre countenances, that his heart turned 
within him, and his knees smote together. His com- 
panion now emptied the contents of the keg into large 
flagons, and made signs to him to wait upon the com* 
pany. He obeyed with fear and trembling; they 
quaffed the liquor in profound silence, and then re* 
turned to their game. 

By degrees Rip's awe and apprehension subsided. 
He even ventured, when no eye was fixed upon him, to 
taste the beverage, which he found had much of the 
flavor of excellent Hollands. He was naturally a 
thirsty soul, and was soon tempted to repeat the 
draught. One taste provoked another ; and he reiter- 
fited his visits to the flagon so often that at length his 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 19 

senses were overpowered, his eyes swam in his head, 
his head gradually declined, and he fell into a deep 
sleep. 

On waking, he found himself on the green knoll 
whence he had first seen the old man of the glea 
He rubbed his eyes — it was a bright, sunny morning 
The birds were hopping and twittering among tht 
bushes, and the eagle was wheeling aloft, and breast- 
ing the pure mountain breeze. '' Surely," thought 
Rip, '' I have not slept here all night." He recalled 
the occurrences before he fell asleep. The strange 
man with a keg of liquor — the mountain ravine — 
the wild retreat among the rocks — the woe-begone 
party at nine-pins — the flagon — " Oh ! that flagon ! 
that wicked flagon ! " thought Eip — " what excuse 
shall I make to Dame Van Winkle ? " 

He looked round for his gun, but in place of the 
clean, well-oiled fowling-piece, he found an old fire- 
lock lying by him, the barrel incrusted with rust, the 
lock falling off, and the stock worm-eaten. He now 
fijuspected that the grave roisters of the mountain had 
put a trick upon him, and, having dosed him with li- 
quor, had robbed him of his gun. Wolf, too, had dis- 
appeared, but he might have strayed away after a 
squirrel or partridge. He whistled after him, and 
shouted his name, but all in vain ; the echoes repeated 
his whistle and shout, but no dog was to be seen. 

He determined to revisit the scene of the last even 
ing's gambol, and if he met with any of the party, tc 
demand his dog and gun. As he rose to walk, he 
found himself stiff in the joints, and wanting in his 
usual activity. " These mountain beds do not agree 
with me," thought Rip, " and if this frolic should lay 
me up with a fit of the rheumatism, I shall have a 



20 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

blessed time with Dame Van Winkle/' With somb 
difficulty he got down into the glen ; he found the 
gully up which he and his companion had ascended 
the preceding evening ; but to his astonishment ? 
mountain stream was now foaming down it, leaping 
from rock to rock, and filling the glen with babbling 
murmurs. He, however, made shift to scramble up its 
sides, working his toilsome way through thickets of 
birch, sassafras, and witch-hazel, and sometimes 
tripped up or entangled by the wild grapevines that 
twisted their coils or tendrils from tree to tree, and 
spread a kind of network in his path. 

At length he reached to where the ravine had 
opened through the cliffs to the amphitheatre ; but no 
traces of such opening remained. The rocks presented 
a high, impenetrable wall, over which the torrent came 
tumbling in a sheet of feathery foam, and fell into a 
broad, deep basin, black from the shadows of the sur- 
rounding forest. Here, then, poor Kip was brought 
to a stand. He again called and whistled after his 
dog ; he was only answered by the cawing of a flock 
of idle crows, sporting high in air about a dry tree 
that overhung a sunny precipice ; and who, secure in 
their elevation, seemed to look doAvn and scoff at the 
poor man's perplexities. What was to be done ? the 
morning was passing away, and Rip felt famished for 
want of his breakfast. He grieved to give up his dog" 
and gun ; he dreaded to meet his wife ; but it w ould 
aot do to starve among the mountains. He shook his 
head, shouldered the rusty firelock, and, with a heart 
full of trouble and anxiety, turned his steps home- 
jv^ard. 

As he approached the village he met a number of 
people, but none whom he knew, which somewhat sur- 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 21 

prised him, for he had thought himself acquainted 
with every one in the country round. Their dress, 
too, was of a different fashion from that to which he 
was accustomed. They all stared at him with equal 
marks of surprise, and whenever they cast their eyes 
apon him, invariably stroked their chins. The con- 
stant recurrence of this gesture induced Rip, involun- 
tarily, to do the same, when, to his astonishment, he 
found his beard had grown a foot long ! 

He had now entered the skirts of the village. A 
troop of strange children ran at his heels, hooting 
after him, and pointing at his gray beard. The dogs, 
too, not one of which he recognized for an old ac- 
quaintance, barked at him as he passed. The very 
village was altered ; it was larger and more populous. 
There were rows of houses which he had never seen 
before, and those which had been his familiar haunts 
had disappeared. Strange names were over the doors 
— strange faces at the windows, — everything was 
strange. His mind now misgave him ; he began to 
doubt whether both he and the world around him 
were not bewitched. Surely this was his native vil- 
lage, which he had left but the day before. There 
stood the Kaatskill Mountains — there ran the silver 
Hudson at a distance — there was every hill and dale 
precisely as it had always been — Rip was sorely per- 
plexed — " That flagon last night," thought he, " has 
addled my poor head sadly ! " 

It w?.s with some difficulty that he found the way 
fco his own house, which he approached with silent 
awe, expecting every moment to hear the shrill voice 
of Dame Van Winkle. He found the house gone to 
decay — the roof fallen in, the windows shattered, 
and the doors off the hinges. A half-starved dog that 



22 WASHINGTON IRVING, 

looked like Wolf was skulking about it. Rip called 
him by name, but the cur snarled, showed his teeth, 
and passed on. This was an unkind cut indeed — 
"My very dog," sighed poor Eip, ''has forgotten 
me!" 

He entered the house, which, to tell the truth. Dame 
Van Winkle had always kept in neat order. It was 
ampty, forlorn, and apparently abandoned. This deso- 
lateness overcame all his connubial fears — he called 
loudly for his wife and children — the lonely cham* 
bers rang for a moment with his voice, and then again 
all was silence. 

He now hurried forth, and hastened to his old re- 
sort, the village inn — but it, too, was gone. A large, 
rickety wooden building stood in its place, with great 
gaping windows, some of them broken and mended 
with old hats and petticoats, and over the door was 
painted, '' The Union Hotel, by Jonathan Doolittle." 
Instead of the great tree that used to shelter the quiet 
little Dutch inn of yore, there now was reared a tall 
naked pole, with something on the top that looked like 
a red night-cap, and from it was fluttering a flag, on 
which was a singular assemblage of stars and stripes 
— all this was strange and incomprehensible. He 
recognizea on the sign, however, the ruby face of 
King George, under which he had smoked so many a 
peaceful pipe ; but even this was singularly metamor- 
phosed. The red coat was changed for one of blue 
and buff, a sword was held in the hand instead of a 
sceptre, the head was decorated with a cocked hat, 
and underneath was painted in large characters, Gen- 
eral Washington. 

There was, as usual, a crowd of folk about the door, 
but none that Kip recollected. The very character ot 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 28 

the people seemed changed. There was a busy^ bus* 
tling, disputatious tone about it, instead of the accus- 
tomed phlegm and drowsy tranquillity. He looked in 
7ain for the sage Nicholas Vedder, with his broad 
face, double chin, and fair long pipe, uttering clouds 
of tobacco-smoke instead of idle speeches ; or Van 
Bununel, the school-master, doling forth the contents 
of an ancient newspaper. In place of these, a lean, 
bilious-looking fellow, with his pockets full of hand- 
bills, was haranguing vehemently about rights of citi- 
zens — elections — members of congress — liberty — 
Bunker's Hill — heroes of seventy-six — and other 
words, which were a perfect Babylonish jargon to the 
bewildered Van Winkle. 

The appearance of Kip, with his long grizzled beard, 
his rusty fowling-piece, his uncouth dress, and an army 
of women and children at his heels, soon attracted 
the attention of the tavern-politicians. They crowded 
round him, eying him from head to foot with great 
curiosity. The orator bustled up to him, and, draw- 
ing him partly aside, inquired " on which side he 
voted ? " Eip started in vacant stupidity. Another 
short but busy little fellow pulled him by the arm, 
and, rising on tiptoe, inquired in his ear, " Whether 
he was Federal or Democrat ? " Rip was equally at 
a loss to comprehend the question ; when a knowing, 
self-important old gentleman, in a sharp cocked hat, 
made his way through the crowd, putting them to the 
right and left with his elbows as he passed, and plant- 
ing himself before Van Winkle, with one arm akimbo,, 
the other resting on his cane, his keen eyes and sharp 
hat penetrating, as it were, into his very soul, de- 
manded in an austere tone, " what brought him to the 
election with a gun on his shoulder, and a mob at hia 



24 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

heeK and whether he meant to breed a riot in the 
village ? " — "' Alas ! gentlemen," cried Rip, somewhat 
dismayed, " I am a poor quiet man, a native of the 
place, and a loyal subject of the king, God bless 
him ! " 

Here a general shout burst from the bystanders — 
" A tory ! a tory ! a spy ! a refugee ! hustle him ! 
away with him ! " It was with great difficulty that 
the self-important man in the cocked hat restored 
order; and, having assumed a tenfold austerity of 
brow, demanded again of the unknown culprit what 
he came there for, and whom he was seeking ? The 
poor man humbly assured him that he meant no harm, 
but merely came there in search of some of his neigh- 
bors, who used to keep about the tavern. 

" Well — who are they ? — name them." 

Rip bethought himself a moment, and inquired 
'' Where 's Nicholas Vedder ? " 

There was a silence for a little while, when an old 
man replied, in a thin, piping voice : " Nicholas Ved- 
der ! why, he is dead and gone these eighteen years ! 
There was a wooden tombstone in the churchyard that 
used to tell all about him, but that 's rotten and gone 
too." 

" Where 's Brom Dutcher ? " 

" Oh, he went off to the army in the beginning of 
the war ■; some say he was killed at the storming oi 
Stony Point ^ — others say he was drowned in a squall 
at the foot of Antony's Nose.^ I don't know — he 
never came back again." 

^ On the Hudson. The place is famous for the daring assault 
made by Mad Anthony Wayne, July 15, 1779. 

2 A few miles above Stony Point is the promontory of An- 
fcony's NosBe If we ^je to believe Diedrich Kn^'<jkerbocker» it 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 25 

** Where s Van Bummel, the school-master ? ^ 

" He went off to the wars too, was a great militia 
general, and is now in Congress." 

Rip's heart died away at hearing of these sad 
changes in his home and friends, and finding himself 
thus alone in the world. Every answer puzzled him 
ioo, by treating of such enormous lapses of time, and 
of matters which he could not understand : war ~* 
Congress — Stony Point ; he had no courage to ask 
ifter any more friends, but cried out in despair, 
^' Does nobody here know Rip Van Winkle ? " 

" Oh, Rip Van Winkle ! " exclaimed two or three, 
** Oh, to be sure ! that 's Rip Van Winkle yonder, lean- 
ing against the tree." 

Rip looked, and beheld a precise counterpart of 
himself, as he went up the mountain : apparently as 
lazy, and certainly as ragged. The poor fellow was 
now completely confounded. He doubted his own 
identity, and whether he was himself or another man. 

was named after Antony Van Corlear, Stuyvesant's trumpeter. 
" It must be known, then, that the nose of Antony the trum- 
peter was of a very lusty size, strutting boldly from his counte- 
nance like a mountain of Golconda. . . . Now thus it happened, 
that bright and early in the mo^^ning the good Antony, having 
washed his burly visage, was leaning over the quarter railing of 
the galley, contemplating it in the glassy wave below. Just at 
this moment the illustrious sun, breaking in all his splendor 
from behind a high bluff of the highlands, did dart one of his 
most potent beams full upon the refulgent nose of the sounder 
of brass — the reflection of which shot straightway down, hissing 
hot, into the water and killed a mighty sturgeon that was sport- 
ing beside the vessel ! . . . When this astonishing miracle came 
to be made known to Peter Stuyvesant he . . . marvelled ex- 
ceedingly ; and as a monument thereof, he gave the name of 
Antonyms Nose to a stout promontory in the neighborhood, and 
it has continued to be called Antony's Nose ever since thfll; 
time*" History of New York^ book VI. chap, iv^ 



26 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

lu the midst of his bewilderment, the man in tht 
cocked hat demanded who he was, and what was his 
name? 

" God knows," exclaimed he, at his wit's end ; " I 'a 
not myself — I'm somebody else — that 's me yonder 
— no — that 's somebody else got into my shoes — I 
was myself last night, but I fell asleep on the moun- 
tain, and they 've changed my gun, and everything's 
changed, and I 'm changed, and I can't tell what 's my 
aame, or who I am ! " 

The bystanders began now to look at each other 
nod, wink significantly, and tap their fingers against 
their foreheads. There was a whisper, also, about 
securing the gun, and keeping the old fellow from 
doing mischief, at the very suggestion of which the 
self-important man in the cocked hat retired with some 
precipitation. At this critical moment a fresh, comely 
woman pressed through the throng to get a peep at 
the gray-bearded man. She had a chubby child in her 
arms, \7hich, frightened at his looks, began to cry, 
" Hush, Rip," cried she, " hush, you little fool ; the 
old man won't hurt you." The name of the child, the 
air of the mother, the tone of her voice, all awakened 
a train of recollections in his mind. " What is your 
rutme, my good woman?" asked he. 

*' Judith Gardenier.'* 

*' And your father's name ? " 

**Ah, poor man. Rip Van Winkle was his ncm« 
but it 's twenty years since he went away from hom^ 
with his gun, and never has been heard of since, — ► 
his dog came home without him ; but whether he shot 
himself, or was carried away by the Indians, nobodj 
can tell. I was then but a little girl." 

Rip had but one question more to ask ; and he put 
it with a f aJtering voice : — 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 27 

*' Where ^s your mother ? '* 

" Oh, she too had died but a short time since ; she 
broke a blood-vessel in a fit of passion at a New Eng- 
land peddler." 

There was a drop of comfort at least, in this intel 
ligence. The honest man could contain himself nc 
longer. He caught his daughter and her child in his 
arms. " I am your father ! " cried he — " Young Rip 
Van Winkle once — old Eip Van Winkle now ! Does 
nobody know poor Rip Van Winkle? " 

All stood amazed, until an old woman tottering out 
from among the crowd, put her hand to her brow, and 
peering under it in his face for a moment, exclaimed, 
"Sure enough it is Rip Van Winkle — it is himself! 
Welcome home again, old neighbor — Why, where 
have you been these twenty long years?" 

Rip's story was soon told, for the whole twenty 
years had been to him but as one night. The neigh- 
bors stared when they heard it; some were seen to 
wink at each other, and put their tongues in their 
cheeks ; and the self-important man in the cocked hat, 
who when the alarm was over, had returned to the 
field, screwed down the corners of his mouth, ana 
shook his head — upon which there was a general 
shaking of the head throughout the assemblage. 

It was determined, however, to take the opinion oi 
old Peter Vanderdonk, who was seen slowly advan^ 
cing up the road. He was a descendant of the histo 
rian of that name,^ who wrote one of the earliest 
accounts of the province. Peter was the most ancient 
inhabitant of the village, and well versed in all the 
wonderful events and traditions of the neighborhood. 
He recollected Rip at once, and corroborated his storj 
^ Adrian Vanderdonk 



28 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

in the most satisfactory manner. He assured the 
3ompany that it was a fact, handed down from his 
ancestor the historian, that the Kaatskill Mountains 
had always been haunted by strange beings. That it 
was affirmed that the great Hendrick Hudson, the first 
discoverer of the river and country, kept a kind of 
vigil there every twenty years, with his crew of the 
HaK-moon ; being permitted in this way to revisit the 
scenes of his enterprise, and keep a guardian eye upon 
the river and the great . city called by his name. 
That his father had once seen them in their old Dutch 
dresses playing at ninepins in a hollow of the moun- 
tain ; and that he himself had heard, one summer 
afternoon, the sound of their balls like distant peals of 
thunder. 

To make a long story short, the company broke up, 
and returned to the more important concerns of the 
election. Rip's daughter took him home to live with 
her ; she had a snug well-furnished house, and a stout 
cheery farmer for a husband, whom Rip recollected 
for one of the urchins that used to climb upon his 
back. As to Rip's son and heir, who was the ditto of 
himself, seen leaning against the tree, he was employed 
to work on the farm ; but evinced an hereditary dis 
position to attend to anything else but his business. 

Rip now resumed his old walks and habits ; he soon 
found many of his former cronies, though all rather 
the worse for the wear and tear of time ; and preferred 
making friends among the rising generation, with 
whom he soon grew into great favor. 

Having nothing to do at home, and being arrived at 
that happy age when a man can be idle with impu- 
nity, he took his place once more on the bench at the 
um door, and was reverenced as one of the patriarch:* 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 29 

sf the village, and a chronicle of the old times " before 
the war." It was some time before he could get into 
\he regular track of gossip, or could be made to com- 
prehend the strange events that had taken place dur^ 
ing his torpor. How that there had been a revolu- 
tionary war — that the country had thrown off the 
yoke of old England — and that, instead of being a 
subject of his Majesty George the Third, he was now 
a free citizen of the United States. Eip, in fact, was 
no politician ; the changes of states and empires made 
but little impression on him ; but there was one spe- 
cies of despotism under which he had long groaned^ 
and that was — petticoat government. Happily that 
was at an end ; he had got his neck out of the yoke of 
matrimony, and could go in and out whenever he 
pleased, without dreading the tyranny of Dame Van 
Winkle. Whenever her name was mentioned, how- 
ever, he shook his head, shrugged his shoulders, and 
cast up his eyes, which might pass either for an ex. 
pression of resignation to his fate, or joy at his deiiv 
erance. 

He used to tell his story to every stranger that ar 
rived at Mr. Doolittle's hotel. He was observed, at 
first, to vary on some points every time he told it^ 
which was, doubtless, owing to his having so recently 
awaked. It at last settled down precisely to the tale 
I have related, and not a man, woman, or child in the 
neighborhood but knew it by heart. Some always 
pretended to doubt the reahty of it, and insisted that 
Eip had been out of his head, and that this was one 
point on which he always remained flighty. The old 
Dutch inhabitants, however, almost universally gave 
it full credit. Even to this day they never hear a 
diunder-storm of a summer afternoon about the Kaats^ 



80 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

kill, but they say Hendrick Hudson and his crew are 
at their game of ninepins ; and it is a common wish 
of all henpecked husbands in the neighborhood, when 
life hangs heavy on their hands, that they might have 
a quieting draught out of Rip Van Winkle's flagoa 

NOTE. 

The foregoing Tale, one would suspect, had been suggested to 
Mr. Knickerbocker by a little German superstition about the 
Emperor Frederick der Rothbart,^ and the Kypphaiiser moun- 
tain ; the subjoined note, however, which he had appended to the 
tale, shows that it is an absolute fact, narrated with his usual 
fidelity. 

" The story of Rip Van Winkle may seem incredible to many, 
but nevertheless I give it my full belief, for I know the vicinity 
of our old Dutch settlements to have been very subject to mar- 
vellous events and appearances. Indeed, I have heard many 
stranger stories than this, in the villages along the Hudson ; all 
of which were too well authenticated to admit of a doubt. I have 
even talked with Rip Van Winkle myself, who, when last I saw 
him, was a very old venerable man, and so perfectly rational and 
consistent on every other point, that I think no conscientious 
person could refuse to take this into the bargain ; nay, I have 
seen a certificate on the subject taken before a country justice 
and signed with a cross, in the justice's own handwriting. The 
story therefore, is beyond the possibility of doubt. 

" D. K.'* 

POSTSCRIPT. 

The following are travelling notes from a memorandum-bool 
jf Mr. Knickerbocker : — 

The Kaatsberg, or Catskill Mountains, have always been a re 
o-ion full of fable. The Indians considered them the abode of 
spirits, who influenced the weather, spreading sunshine or clouds 

1 Frederick I. of Germany, 1121-1190, called Barbarossa, der 
Rothhart (Redbeard or Rufus), was fabled not to have died but 
no have gone into a long sleep, from which he would awake 
when Germany should need him. The same legend was told by 
Uie Danes of their Ilolger, 



KIP VAN WINKLE. 81 

Ol^r the landscape, and sending good or bad hunting seasons. 
They were ruled by an old squaw spirit, said to be their mother. 
She dwelt on the highest peak of the Catskills, and had charg< 
!)f the doors of day and night tc open and shut them at thf 
proper hour. She hung up the new moons in the skies, and cut 
up the old ones into stars. In times of drought, if properly 
propitiated, she would spin light summer clouds out of cobwebs 
and morning dew, and send them off from the crest of the moun- 
tain, flake after flake, like flakes of carded cotton, to float m the 
air ; until, dissolved by the heat of the sun, they would fall m. 
gentle showers, causing the grass to spring, the fruits to ripen,, 
and the corn to grow an inch an hour. If displeased, howeverj, 
she would brew up clouds black as ink, sitting in the midst of 
them like a bottle-bellied spider in the midst of its web ; and 
when these clouds broke, woe betide the valleys ! 

In old times, say the Indian traditions, there was a kind of 
Manitou or Spirit, who kept about the wildest recesses of the 
Catskill Mountains, and took a mischievous pleasure in wreaking 
all kinds of evils and vexations upon the red men. Sometimes 
he would assume the form of a bear, a panther, or a deer, lead 
the bewildered hunter a weary chase through tangled forest and 
among ragged rocks ; and then spring off with a loud ho ! ho ! 
leaving him aghast on the brink of a beetling precipice ^ raging 
torrent 

The favorite abode of this Manitou is still shown. It is a 
great rock or cliff on the loneliest part of the mountains, and 
from the flowering vines which clamber about it, and the wild 
flowers which abound in its neighborhood, is known by the name 
of the Garden Rock. Near the foot of it is a small lake, the 
iiaunt of the solitary bittern, with water-snakes basking in the 
sun on the leaves of the pond-lilies which lie on the surface. 
This place was held in great awe by the Indians, insomuch that 
the boldest hunter would not pursue his game within its pre- 
cincts. Once upon a time, however, a hunter, who had lost his 
way, penetrated to the Garden Rock, where he beheld a number 
of gourds placed in the crotches of trees. One of these he seized 
and made off with it, but in the hurry of his retreat he let it 
fall among the rocks, when a great stream gushed forth, which 
washed him away and swept him down precipices, where he was 
dashed to pieces, and the stream made its way to the Hudson, 
and continues to flow to the present day ; being the ideutioi] 
#.ream known by the name of the Kaaters-kill. 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 

eX)UND AMONG THE PAPERS OF THE LATE DIEDRICH 
KNICKERBOCKER. 

A pleasing land of drowsy head it was, 
Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye 
And ol gay castles in the clouds that pass. 
Forever flushing round a summer sky. 

Castle of Indolence.'^ 

In the bosom of one of those spacious coves which 
indent the eastern shore of the Hudson, at that broad 
expansion of the river denominated by the ancient 
Dutch navigators the Tappan Zee,^ and where they 
always prudently shortened sail and implored the pro- 
tection of St. Nicholas ^ when they crossed, there lies a 
small market town or rural port, which by some is 
called Greensburgh, but which is more generally and 

1 An exquisite poem by James Thomson, an English poet, 
who lived from 1700 to 1748. In it he describes a beautiful pal- 
ace with groves and lawns and flowery beds, where everything 
ministers to the ease and luxury of its lotus-eating inmates. He 
seems to have gathered his materials from Tasso, an Italian 
poet of the sixteenth century, and his inspiration from Spenser, 
an English poet of the same century and the author of The 
Faerie Queene. 

2 The " Mediterranean " of the river, as Irving was pleased tc 
call it, about ten miles long and four wide. 

^ The patron saint of children, also of sailors. Tradition says 
that he was bishop of Myra in Lydia, and died in 326 A. D. He 
is revered by the young as the bearer of gifts on Christmas eve. 
The Dutch know him as Santa Clans (or Klaus). Irving alludes 
to him frequently in his humorous History of New YorJc. 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 33 

properly known by the name of Tarry Town. This 
name was given, we are told, in former days, by the 
good housewives of the adjacent country, from the 
inveterate propensity of their husbands to linger about 
the village tavern on market days. Be that as it may, 
I do not vouch for the fact, but merely advert to it, 
for the sake of being precise and authentic. Not far 
from this village, perhaps about two miles, there is a 
little valley or rather lap of land among high hills, 
which is one of the quietest places in the whole world. 
A small brook glides through it, with just murmur 
enough to lull one to repose ; and the occasional 
whistle of a quail or tapping of a woodpecker is 
almost the only sound that ever breaks in upon the 
uniform tranquillity. 

I recollect that, when a stripling, my first exploit 
in squirrel-shooting was in a grove of tall walnut-trees 
that shades one side of the valley. I had wandered 
into it at noontime, when all nature is peculiarly 
quiet, and was startled by the roar of my own gun, as 
it broke the Sabbath stillness around and was pro- 
longed and reverberated by the angry echoes. If ever 
I should wish for a retreat ^ whither I might steal 
from the world and its distractions, and dream quietly 
away the remnant of a troubled life, I know of non« 
more promising than this little valley. 

From the listless repose of the place, and the pe- 
culiar character of its inhabitants, who are descend- 
ants from the original Dutch settlers, this sequestered 
glen has long been known by the name of Sleepy 

* Irving subsequently bought the little stone cottage where 
the Van Tassels were said to have lived, enlarged and improved 
it, and gave it tlie name of Sunnyside. Here he spent his declin< 
mg years, thus gratifying the wish implied in the text. 



34 WASHINGTON IRVING 

Hollow, and its rustic lads are called the Sleepy 
Hollow Boys throughout all the neighboring country. 
A drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over the 
(and, and to pervade the very atmosphere. Some say 
that the place was bewitched by a High German doc- 
tor, during the early days of the settlement ; others, 
that an old Indian chief, the prophet or wizard of hig 
tribe, held his powwows there before the country was 
discovered bv Master Hendrick Hudson.^ Certain it 
is, the place still continues under the sway of some 
witching power, that holds a spell over the minds of 
the good people, causing them to walk in a continual 
reverie. They are given to all kinds of marvelous 
beliefs ; are subject to trances and visions, and fre« 
quently see strange sights, and hear music and voices 
in the air. The whole neighborhood abounds with 
local tales, haunted spots, and twilight superstitions , 
stars shoot and meteors glare oftener across the valley 
than in any other part of the country, and the night-^ 
mare, with her whole ninefold,^ seems to make it the 
favorite scene of her gambols. 

The dominant spirit, however, that haunts this 
enchanted region, and seems to be commander-in-chief 
of all the powers of the air, is the apparition of a fig< 
ure on horseback, without a head. It is said by some 
to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper, whose head had 
been carried away by a cannon-ball, in some nameless 
battle during the Revolutionary War, and who is ever 

1 More commonly known as Henry Hudson. He was an emi" 
nent English navigator, who, while seeking a northwest passage 
to India, discovered the river and the bay that bears his name, the 
former in 1609 and the latter in 1610. In 1611 a mutinous crew 
forced him and eight men into a small boat and abandoned them 
to their fate. They were never heard of afterwards. 

• ** He met the night-mare and her nine-fold.'^ — King Lear* 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW 35 

and anon seen by the country folk hurrying along iii 
ihe gloom of night, as if on the wings of the wind. 
His haunts are not confined to the valley, but extend 
at times to the adjacent roads, and especially to the 
vicinity of a church ^ at no great distance. Indeed, 
certain of the most authentic historians of those parts^ 
who have been careful in collecting and collating the 
floating facts concerning this spectre, allege that the 
body of the trooper having been buried in the church- 
yard, the ghost rides forth to the scene of battle in 
nightly quest of his head, and that the rushing speed 
with which he sometimes passes along the Hollow, 
like a midnight blast, is owing to his being belated, 
and in a hurry to get back to the churchyard before 
daybreak. 

Such is the general purport of this legendary super* 
fltition, which has furnished materials for many a wild 
story in that region of shadows ; and the spectre is 
known at all the country firesides, by the name of the 
Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow, 

It is remarkable that the visionary propensity I 
have mentioned is not confined to the native inhabi- 
tants of the valley, but is unconsciously imbibed by 
every one who resides there for a time. However wide 
awake they may have been before they entered that 
sleepy region, they are sure, in a little time, to inhale 
^he witching influence of the air, and begin to grow 
imaginative, to dream dreams, and see apparitions. 

I mention this peaceful spot with all possible laud ; 
for it is in such little retired Dutch valleys, found 
here and there embosomed in the great State of New 
york, that population, manners, and customs remain 

* This little Dutch church, which was built in 1699, is said 4e 
be still standing 



86 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

fixed, while the great torrent of migration and iin. 
provenient, which is making such incessant changes 
in other parts of this restless country, sweeps by them 
unobserved. They are like those little nooks of still 
water, which border a rapid stream, where we may see 
the straw and bubble riding quietly at anchor, or 
slowly revolving in their mimic harbor, undisturbed 
by the rush of the passing current. Though many 
years have elapsed since I trod the drowsy shades of 
Sleepy Hollow, yet I question whether I should not 
still find the same trees and the same families vege- 
tating in its sheltered bosom. 

In this by-place of nature there abode, in a remote 
period of American history, that is to say, some thirty 
years since, a worthy wight of the name of Ichabod 
Crane, who sojourned, or^ as he expressed it, ''tar- 
ried," in Sleepy Hollow, for the purpose of instructing 
the children of the vicinity. He was a native of Con- 
necticut, a State which supplies the Union with pio- 
aeers for the mind as well as for the forest, and sends 
forth yearly its legions of frontier woodmen and coun- 
try schoolmasters. The cognomen of Crane was not 
inapplicable to his person. He was tall, but exceed- 
ingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs, 
hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that 
might have served for shovels, and his whole frame 
most loosely hung together. His head was small, and 
flat at top, with huge ears, large green glassy eyes, 
and a long snipe nose, so that it looked like a weather- 
cock perched upon his spindle neck to tell which way 
the wind blew. To see him striding along the profile 
of a hill on a windy day, with his clothes bagging and 
fluttering about him, one might have mistaken him for 
the genius of famine descending upon the earth, or 
%aw^ scarecrow eloped from a cornfieldi 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 37 

His schoolhouse was a low building of one large 
room, rudely constructed of logs ; the windows partly 
glazed, and partly patched with leaves of old copy- 
books. It was most ingeniously secured at vacant 
hours, by a withe twisted in the handle of the door, and 
stakes set against the window shutters : so that thougl 
a thief might get in with perfect ease, he would find 
some embarrassment in getting out, — an idea most 
probably borrowed by the architect, Yost Van Hou- 
ten, from the mystery of an eelpot.^ The schoolhouse 
stood in a rather lonely but pleasant situation, just at 
the foot of a woody hill, with a brook running close 
by, and a formidable birch-tree growing at one end of 
it. From hence the low murmur of his pupils' voices, 
conning over their lessons, might be heard in a drowsy 
summer's day, like the hum of a beehive ; interrupted 
now and then by the authoritative voice of the master, 
in the tone of menace or command ; or, perad venture, 
by the appalling sound of the birch, as he urged some 
tardy loiterer along the flowery path of knowledge. 
Truth to say, he was a conscientious man, and ever 
bore in mind the golden maxim, " Spare the rod and 
spoil the child." ^ Ichabod Crane's scholars certainly 
were not spoiled. 

I would not have it imagined, however, that he was 
one of those cruel potentates of the school who joy 
in the smart of their subjects ; on the contrary, he 
administered justice with discrimination rather than 

1 A trap for catching eels, its funnel-shaped aperture favoring 
their entrance but thwarting their escape. 

2 The thought, but not the wording, is from the Bible, as tht 
following quotations show; — 

*'He that spareth his rod hateth his son." — Prov. xiii. 24. 
** Love is a boy by poets styl'd ; 
Then spare the rod and spoil the child." — Butler'p Budibra^ 



38 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

severity ; taking the burden off the backs of the 
weak, and laying it on those of the strong. Your 
uere puny stripling, that winced at the least flourish 
of the rod, was passed by with indulgence ; but the 
claims of justice were satisfied by inflicting a double 
portion on some little tough, wrong-headed, broad 
skirted Dutch urchin, who sulked and swelled and 
grew dogged and sullen beneath the birch. All this 
he called '' doing his duty by their parents ; " and he 
never inflicted a chastisement without following it by 
the assurance, so consolatory to the smarting urchin, 
that " he would remember it and thank him for it the 
longest day he had to live." 

When school hours were over, he was even the com- 
panion and playmate of the larger boys ; and on holi- 
day afternoons would convoy some of the smaller ones 
home, who happened to have pretty sisters, or good 
housewives for mothers, noted for the comforts of the 
3upboard. Indeed, it behooved him to keep on good 
terms with his pupils. The revenue arising from his 
school was small, and would have been scarcely suffx- 
cient to furnish him with daily bread, for he was a 
huge feeder, and, though lank, had the dilating powers^ 
of an anaconda ; but to help out his maintenance, he 
was, according to country custom in those parts, 
boarded and lodged at the houses of the farmers 
whose children he instructed. With these he lived 
successively a week at a time, thus going the rounds 
of the neighborhood, with all his worldly effects tied 
up in a cotton handkerchief. 

That all tliis might not be too onerous on the purses 
of his rustic patrons, who are apt to consider the costs 
of schooling a grievous burden, and schoolmasters as 
mere drones, he had various ways of rendering him' 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 39 

self both useful and agreeable. He assisted the farm 
ers occasionally in the lighter labors of their farms,^ 
helped to make hay, mended the fences, took the 
horses to water, drove the cows from pasture, and 
cut wood for the winter fire. He laid aside, too, all 
the dominant dignity and absolute sway with which 
he lorded it in his little empire, the school, and be« 
came wonderfully gentle and ingratiating. He found 
favor in the eyes of the mothers by petting the chil- 
dren, particularly the youngest ; and like the lion 
bold, which whilom so magnanimously the lamb did 
hold,^ he would sit with a child on one knee, and rock 
a cradle with his foot for whole tours together. 

In addition to his other vocations, he was the sing 
ing-master of the neighborhood, and picked up many 
bright shillings by instructing the young folks ir 
psalmody. It was a matter of no little vanity to him 
on Sundays, to take his station in front of the church 
gallery, with a band of chosen singers ; where, in his 
own mind, he completely carried away the palm from 
the parson. Certain it is, his voice resounded far 
above all the rest of the congregation ; and there are 
peculiar quavers still to be heard in that church, and 
which may even be heard half a mile off, quite to 
the opposite side of the mill-pond, on a still Sunday 
morning, which are said to be legitimately descended 

* In the New England Primer, almost the only juvenile booli 
in the early schools of this country, occurs the following rude 
couplet : — 

*' The Lion bold 

The Lamb doth hold.'* 

A coarse woodcut, representing a lion with his paw resting lov- 
ingly (!) on a lamb, accompanies the rhymes ; and the main 
object seems to be to impress indelibly on the learner's mind the 
letter L, 



40 WA SHING TON IK VING. 

from the nose of Icliabod Crane. Thus, by divers 
little makeshifts, in that ingenious way which is com- 
monly denominated "' by hook and by crook," the 
worthy pedagogue got on tolerably enough, and was 
thought, by all who understood nothing of the labor 
of headwork, to have a wonderfully easy life of it. 

The schoolmaster is generally a man of some impor- 
tance in the female circle of a rural neighborhood ; 
being considered a kind of idle, gentlemanlike person- 
age, of vastly superior taste and accomplishments to 
the rough country swains, and, indeed, inferior in 
learning only to the parson. His appearance, there- 
fore, is apt to occasion some little stir at the tea-table 
of a farmhouse, and the addition of a supernumerary 
dish of cakes or sweetmeats, or, peradventure, the pa- 
rade of a silver teapot. Our man of letters, therefore, 
was peculiarly happy in the smiles of all the coun- 
try damsels. How he would figure among them in 
the churchyard, between services on Sundays! gather- 
ing grapes for them from the wild vines that overran 
the surrounding trees ; reciting for their amusement 
all the epitaphs on the tombstones; or sauntering, 
with a whole bevy of them, along the banks of the 
adjacent mill-pond; while the more bashful country 
bumpkins hung sheepishly back, envying his superior 
elegance and address. 

From his half-itinerant life, also, he was a kind of 
traveling gazette, carrying the whole budget of local 
gossip from house to house, so that his appearance 
was always greeted with satisfaction. He was, more 
over, esteemed by the women as a man of great erudi 
tion,for he liad read several books quite through, and 
was a perfect master of Cotton Mather's ^ ''History of 

1 Cotton Mather was a New England clergyman, son of 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 41 

New England Witchcraft," in which, by the way, he 
most firmly and potently believed. 

He was, in fact, an odd mixture of small shrewd- 
ness and simple credulity. His appetite for the mar- 
velous, and his powers of digesting it, were equally 
extraordinary ; and both had been increased by his 
residence in this spell-bound region. No tale was toe 
gross or monstrous for his capacious swallow. It was 
often his delight, after his school was dismissed in the 
afternoon, to stretch himself on the rich bed of clover 
bordering the little brook that whimpered by his 
school-house, and there con over old Mather's direful 
tales, until the gathering dusk of evening made the 
printed page a mere mist before his eyes. Then, as 
he wended his way by swamp and stream and awful 
woodland, to the farmhouse where he happened to be 
quartered, every sound of nature, at that witching 
hour, fluttered his excited imagination, — the moan of 
the whip-poor-will from the hillside, the boding cry 
of the tree toad, that harbinger of storm, the dreary 
hooting of the screech owl, to the sudden rustling in 
the thicket of birds frightened from their roost. The 
fireflies, too, which sparkled most vividly in the dark- 
est places, now and then startled him, as one of 
uncommon brightness would stream across his path ;, 
and if, by chance, a huge blockhead of a beetle came 
winging his blundering flight against him, the poor 
varlet was ready to give up the ghost, with the idea 

Increase Mather and grandson of John Cotton. He was born in 
Boston in 1663, graduated at Harvard College in 1684, and 
ordained minister in Boston the same year. He was a diligent 
and prolific student, his various publications numbering nearly 
tour hundred. Like most persons of his time, he believed in the 
existence of witches, and thought he was doing God's service ip 
bunting; them down, He died in 1728. 



42 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

that lie was struck witn a witch's token. His only 
resource on such occasions, either to drown thought 
or drive away evil spirits, was to sing psalm tunes ; 
and the good people of Sleepy Hollow, as they sat by 
their doors of an evening, were often filled with awe 
at hearing his nasal melody, "in linked sweetness 
long drawn out,"^ floating from the distant hill, or 
along the dusky road. 

Another of his sources of fearful pleasure was to 
pass long winter evenings with the old Dutch wives, as 
they sat spinning by the fire, with a row of apples 
roasting and spluttering along the hearth, and listen 
to their marvelous tales of ghosts and goblins, and 
haunted fields, and haunted brooks, and haunted 
bridges, and haunted houses, and particularly of the 
headless horseman, or Galloping Hessian of the Hol- 
low, as they sometimes called him. He would delight 
them equally by his anecdotes of witchcraft, and of 
the direful omens and portentous sights and sounds in 
the air, which prevailed in the earlier times of Con- 
necticut ; and would frighten them woefully with spec- 
ulations upon comets and shooting stars ; and with the 
alarming fact that the world did absolutely tun* 
round, and that they were half the time topsy-turvy ! 

But if there was a pleasure in all this, while snugly 
cuddling in the chimney corner of a chamber that was 
all of a ruddy glow from the crackling wood fire, and 
where, of course, no spectre dared to show its face, it 
was dearly purchased by the terrors of his subsequent 
walk homewards. What fearful shapes and shadows 
beset his path, amidst the dim and ghastly glare of 
a snowy night! With what wistful look did he eye 
every trembling ray of light streaming across the 
^ From Milton's U Allegro. 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 43 

^aste fields from some distant window ! How often 
was he appalled by some shrub covered with snow, 
which, like a sheeted spectre, beset his very path ! 
How often did he shrink with curdling awe at the 
sound of his own steps on the frosty crust beneath his 
feet ; and dread to look over his shoulder, lest he 
should behold some uncouth being tramping close 
behind him ! and how often was he thrown into 
complete dismay by some rushing blast, howling 
among the trees, in the idea that it was the Galloping 
Hessian on one of his nightly scourings ! 

All these, however, were mere terrors of the night, 
phantoms of the mind that walk in darkness ; and 
though he had seen many spectres in his time, and 
been more than once beset by Satan ^ in divers shapes, 
in his lonely perambulations, yet daylight put an end 
to all these evils ; and he would have passed a pleas- 
ant life of it, in spite of the Devil and all his works, 
if his path had not been crossed by a being that 
causes more perplexity to mortal man than ghosts^ 
goblins, and the whole race of witches put together, 
and that was — a woman. 

Among the musical disciples who assembled, one 
evening in each week, to receive his instructions in 
psalmody, was Katrina Van Tassel, the daughter and 
only child of a substantial Dutch farmer. She was a 
blooming lass of fresh eighteen ; plump as a partridge ; 
ripe and melting and rosy-cheeked as one of her 
father's peaches, and universally famed, not merely for 
her beauty, but her vast expectations. She was withal 
a little of a coquette, as might be perceived even in 

1 An allusion to the old and widespread belief that ghosts, 
goblins, and witches were the obedi'^nt subjects and emissaries 
of the Evil Onee 



44 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

her dress, which was a mixture of ancient and modern 
fashions, as most suited to set off her charms. She 
wore the ornaments of pure yellow gold, which her 
great-great-grandmother had brought over from Saar- 
dam ; ^ the tempting stomacher of the olden time, and 
withal a provokingly short petticoat, to display the 
prettiest foot and ankle in the country round. 

Ichabod Crane had a soft and foolish heart towards 
the sex; and it is not to be wondered at, that so 
tempting a morsel soon found favor in his eyes, more 
especially after he had visited her in her paternal 
mansion. Old Baltus Van Tassel was a perfect pic- 
ture of a thriving, contented, liberal-hearted farmer. 
He seldom, it is true, sent either his eyes or his 
thoughts beyond the boundaries of his own farm ; but 
within those everything was snug, happy and well-con- 
ditioned. He was satisfied with bis wealth, but not 
proud of it; and piqued himself upon the hearty 
abundance, rather than the style in which he lived. 
His stronghold was situated on the banks of the Hud- 
son^ in one of those green, sheltered^ fertile nooks in 
which the Dutch farmers are so fond of nestling. A 
great elm tree spread its broad branches over it, at 
the foot of which bubbled up a spring of the softest 
and sweetest water, in a little well formed of a bar- 
rel; and then stole sparkling away through the grass, 
to a neighboring brook, that babbled along among 
alders and dwarf willows. Hard by the farmhouse 
was a vast barn, that might have served for a church : 
every window and crevice of which seemed bursting 

^ Also known as Zaandam, a town of Holland about five miles 
from Amsterdam, historically famous as the place where Petei 
the Great of Russia worked as a shipwright and learned how 
to build ships. 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 45 

forth with the treasures of the farm ; the flail was 
busily resounding within it from morning to night i 
swallows and martins skimmed twittering about the 
eaves ; and rows of pigeons, some with one eye turned 
up, as if watching the weather, some with their heads 
under their wings or buried in their bosoms, and 
others swelling, and cooing, and bowing about their 
dames, were enjoying the sunshine on the roof. Sleek 
unwieldy porkers were grunting in the repose and 
abundance of their pens, from whence sallied forth, 
now and then, troops of sucking pigs, as if to snulf 
the air. A stately squadron of snowy geese were rid- 
ing in an adjoining pond, convoying whole fleets of 
ducks; regiments of turkeys were gobbling through 
the farmyard, and Guinea fowls fretting about it, like 
ill-tempered housewives, with their peevish, discon- 
tented cry. Before the barn door strutted the gallant 
cock, that pattern of a husband, a warrior and a fine 
gentleman, clapping his burnished wings and crowing 
in the pride and gladness of his heart, — sometimes 
tearing up the earth with his feet, and then gener- 
ously calling his ever-hungry family of wives and chil- 
dren to enjoy the rich morsel which he had discov* 
ered. 

The pedagogue's mouth watered as he looked upon 
this sumptuous promise of luxurious winter fare. In 
his devouring mind's eye, he pictured to himself every 
roasting-pig running about with a pudding in his 
belly, and an apple in his mouth ; the pigeons were 
snugly put to bed in a comfortable pie, and tucked in 
with a coverlet of crust ; the geese were swimming in 
their own gravy ; and the ducks pairing cosily in 
dishes, like snug married couples, with a decent com- 
petency of onion sauce. In the porkers he saw carved 



46 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

out the future sleek side of bacon, and juicy relishing 
ham ; not a turkey but he beheld daintily trussed up, 
with its gizzard under its wing, and, peradventure, a 
necklace of savory sausages ; and even bright chanti- 
cleer himself lay sprawling on his back, in a side dish, 
with uplifted claws, as if craving that quarter which 
his chivalrous spirit disdained to ask while living. 

As the enraptured Ichabod fancied all this, and as he 
rolled his great green eyes over the fat meadow lands^ 
the rich fields of wheat, of rye, of buckwheat, and 
Indian corn, and the orchards burdened with ruddy 
fruit, which surrounded the warm tenement of Van 
Tassel, his heart yearned after the damsel who was to 
inherit these domains, and his imagination expanded 
with the idea, how they might be readily turned into 
cash, and the money invested in immense tracts of 
wild land, and shingle palaces in the wilderness. 
Nay, his busy fancy already realized his hopes, and 
presented to him the blooming Katrina, with a whole 
family of children, mounted on the top of a wagon 
loaded with household trumpery, with pots and ket- 
tles dangling beneath ; and he beheld himself bestrid- 
ing a pacing mare, with a colt at her heels, setting 
out for Kentucky, Tennessee,^ — or the Lord knows 
where ! 

When he entered the house, the conquest of his 
heart was complete. It was one of those spacious 
farmhouses, with high-ridged but lowly sloping roofs, 
built in the style handed down from the first Dutch 
settlers ; the low projecting eaves forming a piazza 
along the front, capable of being closed up in bad 

1 At tlie time the Sketch Book, which contains the Legend of 
Sleepy Hollow, was published (1819), the far West that ami' 
grants made their goal was east of the Mississippi. 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 47 

weatheFo Under this were hung flails, harness, vari- 
i)us utensils of husbandry, and nets for fishing in the 
neighboring river. Benches were built along the sides 
for summer use ; and a great spinning-wheel at one 
end, and a churn at the other, showed the various uses 
to which this important porch might be devoted. 
From this piazza the wondering Ichabod entered the 
hall, which formed the centre of the mansion, and the 
place of usual residence. Here rows of resplendent 
pewter, ranged on a long dresser, dazzled his eyes. 
In one corner stood a huge bag of wool, ready to be 
spun; in another, a quantity of linsey-woolsey just 
from the loom ; ears of Indian corn, and strings of 
dried apples and peaches, hung in gay festoons along 
the walls, mingled with the gaud of red peppers ; and 
a door left ajar gave him a peep into the best parlor, 
where the claw-footed chairs and dark mahogany 
tables shone like mirrors ; andirons, with their accom- 
panying shovel and tongs, glistened from their covert 
of asparagus tops ; mock-oranges and conch-shells 
decorated the mantelpiece ; strings of various-colored 
birds' eggs were suspended above it ; a great ostrich 
eg^ was hung from the centre of the room, and a cor- 
ner cupboard, knowingly left open, displayed immense 
treasures of old silver and well-mended china. 

From the moment Ichabod laid his eyes upon these 
regions of delight, the peace of his mind was at an 
end, and his only study was how to gain the affections of 
the peerless daughter of Van Tassel. In this enterprise, 
however, he had more real difficulties than generally 
fell to the lot of a knight-errant of yore,^ who seldom 

1 A good type of the hero Irving had in mind may be found in 
Don Quixote, the wandering knight whom Spanish Cervantes im* 
mortalized in his inimitable Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605). 



48 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

had auythiiig but giants, enchanters, fiery dragons, 
and such like easily conquered adversaries, to contend 
with ; and had to make his way merely through gates 
of iron and brass, and walls of adamant to the castle 
keep, where the lady of his heart was confined ; all 
which he achieved as easily as a man would carve his 
way to the centre of a Christmas pie ; and then the 
lady gave him her hand as a matter of course. Icha- 
bod, on the contrary, had to win his way to the heart 
of a country coquette, beset with a labyrinth of whims 
and caprices, which were forever presenting new diffi- 
culties and impediments ; and he had to encounter a 
host of fearful adversaries of real flesh and blood, the 
numerous rustic admirers, who beset every portal to 
her heart, keeping a watchful and angry eye upon 
each other, but ready to fly out in the common cause 
against any new competitor. 

Among these, the most formidable was a burly, 
roaring, roystering blade, of the name of Abraham, or, 
according to the Dutch abbreviation, Broni Van 
Brunt, the hero of the country round, which rang 
with his feats of strength and hardihood. He was 
broad-shouldered and double-jointed, with short curly 
black hair, and a bluff but not unpleasant counte- 
nance, having a mingled air of fun and arrogance. 
From his Herculean frame and great powers of limb, 
he had received the nickname of Brom Bones, by 
which he was universally known. Pie was famed for 
great knowledge and skill in horsemanship, being as 
dexterous on horseback as a Tartar. He was foremost 
at all races and cock-fights; and, with the ascendancy 
which bodily strength always acquires in rustic life, 
was the umpire in all disputes, setting his hat on one 
side, and giving his decisions with an air and tone that 



THE LEGEND QF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 49 

admitted of no gainsay or appeal. He was always 
ready for either a fight or a frolic ; but had more mis- 
chief than ill-will in his composition ; and with all his 
overbearing roughness, there was a strong dash of 
waggish good humor at bottom. He had three or 
four boon companions, who regarded him as their 
model, and at the head of whom he scoured the coun= 
try, attending every scene of feud or merriment for 
miles round. In cold weather he was distinguished 
by a fur cap, surmounted with a flaunting fox's tail ; 
and when the folks at a country gathering descried 
this well-known crest at a distance, whisking about 
among a squad of hard riders, they always stood by 
for a squall. Sometimes his crew would be heard 
dashing along past the farmhouses at midnight, with 
whoop and halloo, like a troop of Don Cossacks ; ^ and 
the old dames, startled out of their sleep, would listen 
for a moment till the hurry-scurry had clattered by, 
and then exclaim, " Ay, there goes Brom Bones and 
his gang ! " The neighbors looked upon him with a 
mixture of awe, admiration, and good-will ; and, when 
any madcap prank or rustic brawl occurred in the 
vicinity, always shook their heads, and warranted 
Brom Bones was at the bottom of it. 

This rantipole hero had for some time singled out 
the blooming Katrina for the object of his uncouth 
gallantries, and though his amorous toyings were 
something like the gentle caresses and endearments of 

^ The Cossacks are restless and warlike Russian tribes, of 
excellent service to the Russian army as scouts, skirmishers, and 
irregular cavalry. They are widely distributed over the empirei 
and are popularly known by their localities as the Cossacks of the 
river Don, of the Danube, of the Black Sea, of the Caucasus, 
4iid so on. 



60 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

a bear, yet it was whispered that she did not alto 
gether discourage his hopes. Certain it is, his ad- 
vances were signals for rival candidates to retire, who 
felt no inclination to cross a lion in his amours ; inso- 
much, that when his horse was seen tied to Van Tas- 
sel's paling, on a Sunday night, a sure sign that his 
master was courting, or, as it is termed, " sparking,''' 
within, all other suitors passed by in despair, and car- 
ried the war into other quarters. 

Such was the formidable rival with whom Ichabod 
Crane had to contend, and, considering all things, a 
stouter man than he would have shrunk from the 
competition, and a wiser man would have despaired. 
He had, however, a happy mixture of pliability and 
perseverance in his nature ; he was in form and spirit 
like a supple-jack — yielding, but tough ; though he 
bent, he never broke ; and though he bowed beneath 
the slightest pressure, yet, the moment it was away — 
jerk ! — he was as erect, and carried his head as high 
as ever. 

To have taken the field openly against his rival 
would have been madness ; for he was not a man to 
be thwarted in his amours, any more than that stormj 
lover, Achilles.^ Ichabod, therefore, made his ad- 
vances in a quiet and gently insinuating manner 
Under cover of his character of singing-master, he 
made frequent visits at the farmhouse ; not that he 
had anything to apprehend from the meddlesome inter- 
ference of parents, which is so often a stumbling-block 
in the path of lovers. Bait Van Tassel was an easy, 

^ The most famous warrior of the Trojan War. The IHad of 
Homer begins with the wrath of Achilles^ in the tenth year of 
the war, been iiso Agamemnon had taken from him Brisei's, a 
beautiful captive, to whom he was strongly attached. 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 61 

indulgent soul ; he loved his daughter better even 
than his pipe, and, like a reasonable man and an 
excellent father, let her have her way in everything. 
His notable little wife, too, had enough to do to 
attend to her housekeeping and manage her poultry ; 
for, as she sagely observed, ducks and geese are fool- 
ish things, and must be looked after, but girls can 
take care of themselves. Thus, while the busy dame 
bustled about the house, or plied her spinning-wheel 
at one end of the piazza, honest Bait would sit smok- 
ing his evening pipe at the other, watching the 
achievements of a little wooden warrior, who, armed 
with a sword in each hand, was most valiantly fight- 
ing the wind on the pinnacle of the barn. In the 
mean time, Ichabod would carry on his suit with the 
daughter by the side of the spring under the great 
elm, or sauntering along in the twilight, that hour so 
favorable to the lover's eloquence. 

I profess not to know how women's hearts are 
wooed and won. To me they have always been mat- 
ters of riddle and admiration. Some seem to have 
but one vulnerable point, or door of access ; while 
others have a thousand avenues, and may be captured 
in a thousand different ways. It is a great triumph 
of skill to gain the former, but a still greater proof 
of generalship to maintain possession of the latter, for 
a man must battle for his fortress at every door and 
window. He who wins a thousand common hearts is 
therefore entitled to some renown ; but he who keeps 
undisputed sway over the heart of a coquette is in- 
deed a hero. Certain it is, this was not the case with 
the redoubtable Brom Bones ; and from the moment 
Ichabod Crane made his advances, the interests of the 
former evidently declined : his horse was no longer 



62 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

seen tied to the palings on Sunday nights, and a 
deadly feud gradually arose between him and the pre- 
ceptor of Sleepy Hollow. 

Brom, who had a degree of rough chivalry in big 
nature, would fain have carried matters to open war 
fare and have settled their pretensions to the lady, 
according to the mode of those most concise and sim- 
ple reasoners, the knights-errant of yore, — by single 
combat ; but Ichabod was too conscious of the supe- 
rior might of his adversary to enter the lists against 
him; he had overheard a boast of Bones, that he 
would '' double the schoolmaster up, and lay him on a 
shelf of his own schoolhouse ; " and he was too wary 
to give him an opportunity. There was something 
extremely provoking in this obstinately pacific system ; 
it left Brom no alternative but to draw upon the 
funds of rustic waggery in his disposition, and to play 
ofi: boorish practical jokes upon his rival. Ichabod be- 
came the object of whimsical persecution to Bones and 
his gang of rough riders. They harried his hitherto 
peaceful domains, smoked out his singing-school by 
stopping up the chimney, broke into the schoolhouse 
at night, in spite of its formidable fastenings of withe 
and window stakes, and turned everything topsy-turvy, 
so that the poor schoolmaster began to think all the 
witches in the country held their meetings there. But 
what was still more annoying, Brom took all opportu- 
nities of turning him into ridicule in presence of his 
\nistress, and had a scoundrel dog whom he taught to 
vhine in the most ridiculous manner, and introduced 
as a rival of Ichabod's, to instruct her in psalmody. 

In this way matters went on for some time, without 
producing any material effect on the relative situa- 
tions of the contending powers. On a fine autumnal 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 53 

ftfternoon^ Ichabod, in pensive mood, sat enthroned on 
the lofty stool from whence he usually watched all the 
concerns of his little literary realm. In his hand 
he swayed a ferule, that sceptre of despotic power; 
the birch of justice reposed on three nails behind the 
throne, a constant terror to evil doers ; while on the 
desk before him might be seen sundry contraband 
articles and prohibited weapons, detected upon the 
persons of idle urchins, such as half-munched apples^ 
popguns, whirligigs, fly-cages, and whole legions of 
rampant little paper game-cocks. Apparently there 
had been some appalling act of justice recently in- 
flicted, for his scholars were all busily intent upon 
their books, or slyly whispering behind them with one 
eye kept upon the master ; and a kind of buzzing still- 
ness reigned throughout the schoolroom. It was sud* 
denly interrupted by the appearance of a negro in 
tow-cloth jacket and trowsers, a round-crowned frag- 
ment of a hat, like the cap of Mercury, and mounted 
on the back of a ragged, wild, half -broken colt, which 
he managed with a rope by way of halter. He came 
clattering up to the school-door with an invitation to 
Ichabod to attend a merry-making or '' quilting- 
frolic," 1 to be held that evening at Mynheer Van 
Tassel's ; and having delivered his message with that 
air of importance and effort at fine language which 
a negro is apt to display on petty embassies of the 
kind, he dashed over the brook, and was seen scam- 
pering away up the Hollow, full of the importance 
and hurry of his mission. 

* ** Now were instituted * quilting-bees,* and * nusking-bees,* 
and other rural assemblages, where, under the inspiring influ- 
ence of the fiddle, toil was enlivened by gayety and followed uj3 
^y tiifc da/iC9.*' — Irviug's History of New York. 



64 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

All was now bustle and hubbub in the late quiet 
schoolroom. The scholars were hurried through their 
lessons without stopping at trifles ; those who were 
nimble skipped over half with impunity, and those 
who were tardy had a smart application now and then 
in the rear, to quicken their speed or help them over 
a tall word. Books were flung aside without being 
put away on the shelves, inkstands were overturned, 
benches thrown down, and the whole school was 
turned loose an hour before the usual time, bursting 
forth like a legion of young imps, yelping and racket- 
ing about the green in joy at their early emancipation. 

The gallant Ichabod now spent at least an extra 
half hour at his toilet, brushing and furbishing up his 
best, and indeed only suit of rusty black, and arran- 
ging his locks by a bit of broken looking-glass that 
hung up in the schoolhouse. That he might make his 
appearance before his mistress in the true style of a 
cavalier, he borrowed a horse from the farmer with 
whom he was domiciliated, a choleric old Dutchman 
of the name of Hans Van Ripper, and, thus gallantly 
mounted, issued forth like a knight-errant in quest 
cf adventures. But it is meet I should, in the true 
spirit of romantic story, give some account of the 
looks and equipments of my hero and his steed. The 
animal he bestrode was a broken-down plow-horse, 
that had outlived almost everything but its vicious- 
ness. He was gaunt and shagged, with a ewe neck, 
and a head like a hammer ; his rusty mane and tail 
were tangled and knotted with burs ; one eye had lost 
its pupil, and was glaring and spectral, but the other 
had the gleam of a genuine devil in it. Still he must 
have had fire and mettle in his day, if we may judge 
from the name he bore of Gunpowder He had, iu 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 55 

fact, been a favorite steed of his master's, the choleric 
Van Ripper, who was a furious rider, and had infused, 
very probably, some of his own spirit into the ani- 
mal; for, old and broken-down as he looked, there 
was more of the lurking devil in him than in any 
young filly in the country. 

Ichabod was a suitable figure for such a steed. He 
5:ode with short stirrups, which brought his knees 
nearly up to the pommel of the saddle ; his sharp 
elbows stuck out like grasshoppers' ; he carried his 
whip perpendicularly in his hand, like a sceptre, and 
as his horse jogged on, the motion of his arms was 
not unlike the flapping of a pair of wings. A small 
wool hat rested on the top of his nose, for so his 
scanty strip of forehead might be called, and the 
skirts of his black coat fluttered out almost to the 
horse's tail. Such was the appearance of Ichabod 
and his steed as they shambled out of the gate of 
Hans Van Ripper, and it was altogether such an 
apparition as is seldom to be met with in broad day- 
light. 

It was, as I have said, a fine autumnal day ; the sky 
was clear and serene, and nature wore that rich and 
golden livery which we always associate with the idea of 
abundance. The forests had put on their sob^r brown 
and yellow, while some trees of the tenderer kind had 
been nipped by the frosts into brilliant dyes of orange, 
purple, and scarlet. Streaming files of wild ducks 
began to make their appearance high in the air ; the 
bark of the squirrel might be heard from the groves of 
beech and hickory-nuts, and the pensive whistle of the 
quail at intervals from the neighboring stubble field. 

The small birds were taking their farewell ban- 
quets. In the fullness of their revelry, they fluttered, 



56 WASHINGTON IRVING, 

cliirping and frolicking from bush to bush, and tree 
uO tree, capricious from the very profusion and variety 
around them. There was the honest cockrobin, the 
ravorite game of stripling sportsmen, with its loud 
querulous note ; and the twittering blackbirds flying in 
sable clouds ; and the golden-winged woodpecker, 
with his crimson crest, his broad black gorget, and 
splendid plumage; and the cedar-bird, with its red- 
tipt wings and yellow-tipt tail and its little monteiro^ 
cap of feathers ; and the blue jay, that noisy coxcomb, 
in his gay light blue coat and white underclothes, 
screaming and chattering, nodding and bobbing and 
bowing, and pretending to be on good terms with 
every songster of the grove. 

As Ichabod jogged slowly on his way, his eye, ever 
open to every symptom of culinary abundance, ranged 
with delight over the treasures of jolly autumn. On 
all sides he beheld vast store of apples : some hanging 
in oppressive opulence on the trees ; some gathered 
into baskets and barrels for the market ; others 
heaped up in rich piles for the cider-press. Farther 
on he beheld great fields of Indian corn, with its 
golden ears peeping from their leafy coverts, and 
holding out the promise of cakes and hasty-pudding? 
and the yellow pumpkins lying beneath them, turning 
up their fair round bellies to the sun, and giving 
ample prospects of the most luxurious of pies ; and 
anon he passed the fragrant buckwheat fields breath- 
ing the odor of the beehive, and as he beheld them, soft 
anticipations stole over his mind of dainty slap-jacks, 

^ Same as montero (mon-ta'-ro), a horseman's or huntsman'^ 
cap, having a round crown with flaps which could be drawn 
down over tlie sides of the face. 

'* Hia bat was like a helmet or Spanish montero." — Bioon- 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 57 

well buttered, and garnished with honey or treacle, by 
the delicate little dimpled hand of Katrina Van Tas- 
sel. 

Thus feeding his mind with many sweet thoughts 
^nd " sugared suppositions," he journeyed along the 
«ides of a range of hills which look out upon some 
of the goodliest scenes of the mighty Hudson. The 
sun gradually wheeled his broad disk down in the 
west. The wide bosom of the Tappan Zee lay mo- 
tionless and glassy, excepting that here and there a 
gentle undulation waved and prolonged the blue 
shadow of the distant mountain. A few amber clouds 
floated in the sky, without a breath of air to move 
them. The horizon was of a fine golden tint, chan- 
ging gradually into a pure apple green, and from that 
into the deep blue of the mid-heaven. A slanting ray 
lingered on the woody crests of the precipices that 
overhung some parts of the river, giving greater 
depth to the dark gray and purple of their rocky 
sides. A sloop was loitering in the distance, dropping 
slowly down with the tide, her sail hanging uselessly 
against the mast ; and as the reflect^^n of the sky 
gleamed along the still water, it seemed as if the ves- 
sel was suspended in the air. 

It was toward evening that Ichabod arrived at the 
castle of the Heer Van Tassel, which he found thronged 
with the pride and flower of the adjacent country. 
Old farmers, a spare leathern-faced race, in homespun 
coats and breeches, blue stockings, huge shoes, and 
magnificent pewter buckles. Their brisk, withered 
little dames, in close crimped caps, long-waisted short- 
gowns, homespun petticoats, with scissors and pin-cush- 
ions, and gay calico pockets hanging on the outside. 
Buxom lasses, almost as antiquated as their mothers, 



58 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

excepting where a straw hat, a fine ribbon, or perhaps 
a white frock, gave symptoms of city innovation. The 
sons, in short square-skirted coats, with rows of stu- 
pendous brass buttons, and their hair generally queued 
in the fashion of the times, especially if they could 
procure an eelskin for the purpose, it being esteemed 
throughout the country as a potent nourisher and 
strengthener of the hair. 

Bfom Bones, however, was the hero of the scene, 
having come to the gathering on his favorite steed 
Daredevil, a creature, like himself, full of mettle and 
mischief, and which no one but himself could manage. 
He was, in fact, noted for preferring vicious animals, 
given to all kinds of tricks which kept the rider in 
constant risk of his neck, for he held a tractable, well- 
broken horse as unworthy of a lad of spirit. 

Fain would I pause to dwell upon the world of 
charms that burst upon the enraptured gaze of my 
hero, as he entered the state parlor of Van Tassel's 
mansion. Not those of the bevy of buxom lasses, with 
their luxurious display of red and white ; but the 
ample charms of a genuine Dutch country tea-table, 
in the sumptuous time of autumn. Such heaped-up 
platters of cakes of various and almost indescribable 
kinds, known only to experienced Dutch housewives ! 
There was the doughty doughnut, the tender oly- 
koek,^ and the crisp and crumbling cruller,- sweet 
cakes and short cakes, ginger cakes and honey cakes, 
and the whole family of cakes. And then there were 
apple pies, and peach pies, and pumpkin pies; besides 
slices of ham and smoked beef ; and moreover delec- 

^ Pronounced o-li-cookf from a Dutch word that means oil' 
cake. A cake of dough sweetened and fried in lard, — som©' 
thing like Uie cruller, but richer and tenderer. 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 69 

table dishes of preserved plums, and peaches, and 
pears, and quinces ; not to mention broiled shad and 
roasted chickens ; together with bowls of milk and 
cream, all mingled higgledy-piggledy, pretty much as 
I have enumerated them, with the motherly teapot 
sending up its clouds of vapor from the midst — Hea- 
ven bless the mark! I want breath and time to dis- 
cuss this banquet as it deserves, and am too eager to 
get on with my story. Happily, Ichabod Crane was 
not in so great a hurry as his historian, but did ample 
justice to every dainty. 

He was a kind and thankful creature, whose heart 
dilated in proportion as his skin was filled with good 
cheer, and whose spirits rose with eating, as some 
men's do with drink. He could not help, too, rolling 
his large eyes round him as he ate, and chuckling with 
the possibility that he might one day be lord of all 
this scene of almost unimaginable luxury and splen- 
dor. Then, he thought, how soon he'd turn his back 
upon the old school-house ; snap his fingers in the 
face of Hans Van Eipper, and every other niggardly 
patron, and kick any itinerant pedagogue out of doors 
that should dare to call him comrade ! 

Old Baltus Van Tassel moved about among his 
guests with a face dilated with content and good- 
humor, round and jolly as the harvest moouo His 
hospitable attentions were brief, but expressive, being 
confined to a shake of the hand, a slap on the shoul- 
der, a loud laugh, and a pressing invitation to " fall 
to, and help themselves." 

And now the sound of the music from the common 
room, or hall, summoned to the dance. The musician 
was an old gray-headed negro, who had been the itir- 
t^rant orchestra of the neighborhood for more than 



60 V/ASHINGTQN IRVING, 

half a century. His instrc/meiit was as old and bat- 
tered as himself. The greater part of the time te 
scraped on two or three strings, accompanying every 
movement of the bow with a motion of the head ; bow- 
ing almost to the ground, and stamping with his foot 
whenever a fresh couple were to start. 

Ichabod prided himself upon his dancing as much 
lis upon his vocal powers. Not a limb, not a fibre 
about him was idle ; and to have seen his loosely hung 
frame in full motion, and clattering about the room, 
you would have thought St. Vitus himself, that 
blessed patron of the dance, was figuring before you 
in person. He was the admiration of all the negroes ; 
who, having gathered, of all ages and sizes, from the 
farm and the neighborhood, stood forming a pyramid 
of shining black faces at every door and window ; 
gazing with delight at the scene ; rolling their white 
eye-balls, and showing grinning rows of ivory from 
ear to ear. How could the flogger of urchins be 
otherwise than animated and joyous ? the lady of his 
heart was his partner in the dance, and smiling gra- 
ciously in reply to all his amorous oglings; while 
Brom Bones, sorely smitten with love and jealousy, 
sat brooding by himself in one corner. 

When the dance was at an end, Ichabod was at- 
tracted to a knot of the sager folks, who, with Old Van 
Tassel, sat smoking at one end of the piazza, gossip- 
ing over former times, and drawing out long stories 
about the war. 

This neighborhood, at the time of which I am 
speaking, was one of those highly favored places 
which abound with chronicle and great men. The 
British and American line had run near it during the 
war ; it had, therefore, been the scene of marauding, 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 61 

and infested with refugees, cow-boys, and all kinds of 
border chivalry. Just sufficient time had elapsed to 
enable each story-teller to dress up his tale with a lit- 
tle becoming fiction, and, in the indistinctness of his 
recollection, to make himself the hero of every ex 
ploit. 

There was the story of Doffue Martling, a large 
blue-bearded Dutchman, who had nearly taken a 
British frigate with an old iron nine-pounder from a 
mud breastwork, only that his gun burst at the sixth 
discharge. And there was an old gentleman who 
shall be nameless, being too rich a mynheer ^ to be 
lightly mentioned, who, in the battle of White Plains, 
being an excellent master of defence, parried a mus 
ket-ball with a small-sword, insomuch that he abso- 
lutely felt it whiz round the blade, and glance off at 
the hilt ; in proof of which he was ready at any time 
to show the sword, with the hilt a little bent. There 
were several more that had been equally great in the 
field, not one of whom but was persuaded that he had 
a considerable hand in bringing the war to a happy 
termination. 

But all these were nothing to the tales of ghosts 
and apparitions that succeeded. The neighborhood is 
rich in legendary treasures of the kind. Local tales 
and superstitions thrive best in these sheltered, long 
settled retreats ; but are trampled under foot by the 
shifting throng that forms the population of most oi 
our country places. Besides, there is no encourage- 
ment for ghosts in most of our villages, for they have 
scarcely had time to finish their first nap and turn 

^ Pronounced min-har'. Literally, my lord. It is the ordi- 
nary title of address among Dutchmen, corresponding to sir of 
Mr^ in English use. Hence, a Dutchman, 



62 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

themselves in their graves, before their surviving 
friends have travelled away from the neighborhood ; 
so that when they turn out at night to walk their 
rounds, they have no acquaintance left to call upon. 
This is perhaps the reason why we so seldom hear of 
ghosts except in our long-established Dutch communis 
ties. 

The immediate cause, however, of the prevalence of 
supernatural stories in these parts, was doubtless 
owing to the vicinity of Sleepy Hollow. There was a 
contagion in the very air that blew from that haunted 
region ; it breathed forth an atmosphere of dreams 
and fancies infecting all the land. Several of the 
Sleepy Hollow people were present at Van Tassel's, 
and, as usual, were doling out their wild and wonder- 
ful legends. Many dismal tales were told about fune- 
ral trains, and mourning cries and wailings heard and 
seen about the great tree where the unfortunate Major 
Andr^ was taken, and which stood in the neighbor- 
hood. Some mention was made also of the woman ii> 
white, that haunted the dark glen at Raven Rock, and 
was often heard to shriek on winter nights before a 
storm, having perished there in the snow. The chief 
part of the stories, however, turned upon the favorite 
spectre of Sleepy Hollow, the Headless Horseman, 
who had been heard several times of late, patrolling 
the country; and, it was said, tethered his horse 
nightly among the graves in the churchyard. 

The sequestered situation of this church seemi 
always to have made it a favorite haunt of troubled 
spirits. It stands on a knoll, surrounded by locust* 
trees and lofty elms, from among which its decent 
whitewashed walls shine modestly forth, like Christian 
ourity beaming through the shades of retirement. A 



THE XjEGEND of SLEEPY HOLLOW. 63 

gentle slope descends from it to a silver sheet of 
water, bordered by high trees, between which, peeps 
may be caught at the blue hills of the Hudson. To 
look upon its grass-grown yard, where the sunbeams 
seem to sleep so quietly, one would think that there at 
least the dead might rest in peace. On one side of 
the church extends a wide woody dell, along which 
raves a large brook among broken rocks and trunks 
of fallen trees. Over a deep black part of the 
stream, not far from the church, was formerly thrown 
a wooden bridge ; the road that led to it, and the 
bridge itself, were thickly shaded by overhanging 
trees, which cast a gloom about it, even in the day- 
time ; but occasioned a fearful darkness at night. 
Such was one of the favorite haunts of the Headless 
Horseman, and the place where he was most frequently 
encountered. The tale was told of old Brouwer, a 
most heretical disbeliever in ghosts, how he met the 
Horseman returning from his foray into Sleepy Hol- 
low, and was obliged to get up behind him ; how they 
galloped over bush and brake, over hill and swamp, 
until they reached the bridge ; when the Horseman 
suddenly turned into a skeleton, threw old Brouwer 
into the brook, and sprang away over the tree-tops 
with a clap of thunder. 

This story was immediately matched by a thrice 
marvellous adventure of Brom Bones, who made light 
of the Galloping Hessian as an arrant jockey. He 
affirmed that on returning one night from the neigh- 
ooring village of Sing Sing, he had been overtaken by 
this midnight trooper; that he had offered to race 
with him for a bowl of punch, and should have won it 
too, for Daredevil beat the goblin horse all hollow, but 
just as they came to the church bridge, the Hessian 
, bolted, and vanished in a flash of firiB. 



64 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

All these tales, told in that drowsy undertone with 
which men talk in the dark, the countenances of the 
listeners only now and then receiving a casual gleam 
from the glare of a pipe, sank deep in the mind of 
Ichabod. He repaid them in kind with large extracts 
from his invaluable author, Cotton Mather, and 
added many marvellous events that had taken place 
in his native State of Connecticut, and fearful sights 
which he had seen in his nightly walks about Sleepy 
Hollow. 

The revel now gradually broke up. The old farm- 
ers gathered together their families in their wagons, 
and were heard for some time rattling along the hol- 
low roads, and over the distant hills. Some of the 
damsels mounted on pillions behind their favorite 
swains, and their light-hearted laughter, mingling 
with the clatter of hoofs, echoed along the silent 
woodlands, sounding fainter and fainter, until they 
gradually died away, — and the late scene of noise and 
frolic was all silent and deserted. Ichabod only lin- 
gered behind, according to the custom of country lov- 
ers, to have a tete-a-tete with the heiress ; fully con- 
vinced that he was now on the high road to success. 
What passed at this interview I will not pretend to 
say, for in fact I do not know. Something, however, 
I fear me, must have gone wrong, for he certainly 
sallied forth, after no very great interval, with an air 
quite desolate and chapfallen. Oh, these women ! 
these women ! Could that girl have been playing off 
any of her coquettish tricks? Was her encourage 
ment of the poor pedagogue all a mere sham to secure 
her conquest of his rival ? Heaven only knows, not 
I ! Let it suffice to say, Ichabod stole forth with the 
Vr of one who had been sacking a henroost, rather 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 65 

Aan a fair lady's heart. Without looking to the 
right or left to notice the scene of rural wealth, on 
which he had so often gloated, he went straight to the 
stable, and with several hearty cuffs and kicks roused 
his steed most uncourteously from the comfortable 
quarters in which he was soundly sleeping, dreaming 
of mountains of corn and oats, and whole valleys of 
timothy and clover. 

It was the very witching time of night ^ that Icha. 
bod, heavy-hearted and crest-fallen, pursued his travels 
homewards, along the sides of the lofty hills which 
rise above Tarry Town, and which he had traversed 
so cheerily in the afternoon. The hour was as dismal 
as himself. Far below him the Tappan Zee spread 
its dusky and indistinct waste of waters, with here 
and there the tall mast of a sloop, riding quietly at 
anchor under the land. In the dead hush of mid- 
night, he could even hear the barking of the watch- 
dog from the opposite shore of the Hudson ; but it 
was so vague and faint as only to give an idea of his 
distance from this faithful companion of man. Now 
and then, too, the long-drawn crowing of a cock, acci- 
dentally awakened, would sound far, far off, from some 
farmhouse away among the hills — but it was like a 
dreaming sound in his ear. No signs of life occurred 
near him, but occasionally the melancholy chirp of a 
cricket, or perhaps the guttural twang of a bull-frog 
from a neighboring marsh, as if sleeping uncomfor 
tably and turning suddenly in his bed. 

All the stories of ghosts and goblins that he had 
heard in the afternoon now came crowding upon his 
recollection. The night grew darker and darker ; the 

^ '* *T is now the very witching time of night 
When churchyards yawn." — Hamlet, 



66 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

stars seemed to sink deeper in the sky, and drivii:/^ 
clouds occasionally hid them from his sight. He had 
never felt so lonely and dismal. He was, moreover, 
approaching the very place where many of the scenes 
of the ghost stories had been laid. In the centre of 
the road stood an enormous tulip-tree, which towered 
like a giant above all the other trees of the neighbor- 
hood, and formed a kind of landmark. Its limbs were 
gnarled and fantastic, large enough to form trunks 
for ordinary trees, twisting down almost to the earth, 
and rising again into the air. It was connected with 
the tragical story of the unfortunate Andr^, who had 
been taken prisoner hard by ; and was universally 
known by the name of Major Andre's tree. The 
common people regarded it with a mixture of respect 
and superstition, partly out of sympathy for the fate 
of its ill-starred namesake, and partly from the tales 
of strange sights, and doleful lamentations, told con- 
cerning it. 

As Ichabod approached this fearful tree, he began 
to whistle; he thought his whistle was answered; it 
was but a blast sweeping sharply through the dry 
branches. As he approached a little nearer, he 
thought he saw something white, hanging in the midst 
of the tree : he paused, and ceased whistling ; but, on 
looking more narrowly, perceived that it was a place 
where the tree had been scathed by lightning, and the 
white wood laid bare. Suddenly he heard a groan — 
his teeth chattered, and his knees smote against the 
saddle : it was but the rubbing of one huge bough 
upon another, as they were swayed about by the 
breeze. He passed the tree in safety, but new perils 
lay before him. 

About two hundred yards from the tree, a small 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 67 

brook crossed the road, and ran into a marshy and 
fchickly-wooded glen, known by the name of Wiley's 
Swamp. A few rough logs, laid side by side, served 
for a bridge over this stream. On that side of the 
road where the brook entered the wood, a group of 
oaks and chestnuts, matted thick with wild grape-vines, 
threw a cavernous gloom over it. To pass this bridge 
was the severest trial. It was at this identical spot 
that the unfortunate Andr^ was captured, and under 
the covert of those chestnuts and vines were the 
sturdy yeomen concealed who surprised him. This 
has ever since been considered a haunted stream, and 
fearful are the feelings of the school-boy who has to 
pass it alone after dark. 

As he approached the stream his heart began to 
thump ; he summoned up, however, all his resolution, 
gave his horse half a score of kicks in the ribs, and 
attempted to dash briskly across the bridge ; but 
instead of starting forward, the perverse old animal 
made a lateral movement, and ran broadside against 
the fence. Ichabod, whose fears increased with the 
delay, jerked the reins on the other side, and kicked 
lustily with the contrary foot : it was all in vain ; his 
steed started, it is true, but it was only to plunge to 
the opposite side of the road into a thicket of bram- 
bles and alder-bushes. The schoolmaster now be- 
stowed both whip and heel upon the starveling ribs of 
old Gunpowder, who dashed forward, snuffling and 
snorting, but came to a stand just by the bridge, with 
a suddenness that had nearly sent his rider sprawling 
over his head. Just at this moment a plashy tramp by 
the side of the bridge caught the sensitive ear of Icha- 
bod. In the dark shadow of the grove, on the margin 
of the brook, he beheld something huge, misshapen^ 



68 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

and towering. It stirred not, but seemed gathered up 
in the gloom, like some gigantic monster ready to 
spring upon the traveller. 

The hair of the affrighted pedagogue rose upon his 
head with terror. What was to be done? To turn 
md fly was now too late ; and besides, what chance 
;vas there of escaping ghost or goblin, if such it was, 
which could ride upon the wings of the wind ? Sum- 
moning up, therefore, a show of courage, he demanded 
in stammering accents, "Who are you?" He re- 
ceived no reply. He repeated his demand in a still 
more agitated voice. Still there was no answer. 
Once more he cudgelled the sides of the inflexible 
Gunpowder, and, shutting his eyes, broke forth with 
involuntary fervor into a psalm tune. Just then the 
shadowy object of alarm put itself in motion, and with 
a scramble and a bound stood at once in the middle 
of the road. Though the night was dark and dismal, 
yet the form of the unknown might now in some 
degree be ascertained. He appeared to be a horse- 
man of large dimensions, and mounted on a black 
horse of powerful frame. He made no offer of moles- 
tation or sociability, but kept aloof on one side of the 
road, jogging along on the blind side of old Gun- 
powder, who had now got over his fright and way- 
wardness. 

Ichabod, who had no relish for this strange mid- 
night companion, and bethought himself of the adven- 
ture of Brom Bones with the Galloping Hessian, now 
quickened his steed in hopes of leaving him behind. 
The stranger, however, quickened his horse to an 
equal pace. Ichabod pulled up, and fell into a walk, 
thinking to lag behind, — the other did the same. His 
heart began to sink within him : he endeavored to 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 69 

resume his psalm tune, but his parched tongue clove 
to the roof of his mouth, and he could not utter a 
stave. There was something in the moody and 
dogged silence of this pertinacious companion that 
was mysterious and appalling. It was soon fearfully 
accounted for. On mounting a rising ground, which 
brought the figure of his fellow-traveller in relief 
against the sky, gigantic in height, and muffled in a 
cloak, Ichabod was horror-struck on perceiving that 
he was headless ! but his horror was still more in- 
creased on observing that the head, which should 
have rested on his shoulders, was carried before him 
on the pommel of his saddle ! His terror rose to des- 
peration ; he rained a shower of kicks and blows upon 
Gunpowder, hoping by a sudden niovement to give 
his companion the slip ; but the spectre started full 
jump with him. Away, then, they dashed through 
thick and thin ; stones flying and sparks flashing at 
every bound. Ichabod's flimsy garments fluttered in 
the air, as he stretched his long lank body away over 
his horse's head, in the eagerness of his flight. 

They had now reached the road which turns off to 
Sleepy Hollow; but Gunpowder, who seemed pos- 
sessed with a demon, instead of keeping up it, made 
an opposite turn, and plunged headlong down hill to 
the left. This road leads through a sandy hollow^ 
shaded by trees for about a quarter of a mile, where 
it crosses the bridge famous in goblin story ; and just 
beyond swells the green knoll on which stands the 
whitewashed church. 

As yet the panic of the steed had given his un 
skilful rider an apparent advantage in the chase ; but 
just as he had got half way through the hollow, the 
girths of the saddle gave way, and he felt it slipping 



70 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

from under him. He seized it by the pommel, and 
endeavored to hold it firm, but in vain ; and had just 
time to save himself by clasping old Gunpowder 
round the neck, when the saddle fell to the earth, and 
he heard it trampled under foot by his pursuer. For 
a moment the terror of Hans Van Ripper's wrath 
passed across his mind, — for it was his Sunday sad- 
dle ; but this was no time for petty fears ; the goblin 
was hard on his haunches ; and (unskilful rider that 
he was !) he had much ado to maintain his seat ; some- 
times slipping on one side, sometimes on another, and 
sometimes jolted on the high ridge of his horse's back- 
bone, with a violence that he verily feared would 
cleave him asunder. 

An opening in the trees now cheered him with the 
hopes that the church bridge was at hand. The 
wavering reflection of a silver star in the bosom 
of the brook told him that he was not mistaken. 
He saw the walls of the church dimly glaring under 
\;he trees beyond. He recollected the place where 
Brom Bones' ghostly competitor had disappeared. 
"If I can but reach that bridge,"^ thought Ichabod, 
"I am safe." Just then he heard the black steed 
panting and blowing close behind him ; he even fan- 
cied that he felt his hot breath. Another convulsive 
kick in the ribs, and old Gunpowder sprang upon the 
bridge ; he thundered over the resounding planks ; he 

^ It was a superstitions belief that witches could not cross the 
middle of a stream. In Burns's tale of Tarn O^Shanter the here 
is represented as urging his horse to gain the keystone of the 
bridge so as to escape the hotly pursuing witches ; — 

" Now, do thy speedy utmost, Meg, 
And win the keystane of tlie brig : 
There at them thou thy tail may toss, — 
A running stream they dare not cross 1 " 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 71 

gained the opposite side ; and now Ichabod cast a look 
behind to see if his pursuer should vanish, according 
to rule, in a flash of fire and brimstone. Just then 
he saw the goblin rising in his stirrups, and in the 
very act of hurling his head at him. Ichabod endeav- 
ored to dodge the horrible missile, but too late. It 
encountered his cranium with a tremendous crash, • — - 
he was tumbled headlong into the dust, and Gun- 
powder, the black steed, and the goblin rider, passed 
by like a whirlwind. 

The next morning the old horse was found without 
his saddle, and with the bridle under his feet, soberly 
cropping the grass at his master's gate. Ichabod did 
not make his appearance at breakfast ; dinner-hour 
came, but no Ichabod. The boys assembled at the 
schoolhouse, and strolled idly about the banks of the 
brook ; but no schoolmaster. Hans Van Ripper now 
began to feel some uneasiness about the fate of poor 
Ichabod, and his saddle. An inquiry was set on foot, 
and after diligent investigation they came upon his 
traces. In one part of the road leading to the 
church was found the saddle trampled in the dirt; 
the tracks of horses' hoofs deeply dented in the road, 
and evidently at furious speed, were traced to the 
bridge, beyond which, on the bank of a broad part of 
the brook, where the water ran deep and black, was 
found the hat of the unfortunate Ichabod, and close 
beside it a shattered pumpkin. 

The brook was searched, but the body of the school- 
master was not to be discovered. Hans Van Ripper, 
as executor of his estate, examined the bundle which 
contained all his worldly effects. They consisted of 
two shirts and a half ; two stocks for the neck ; a pair 
or two of worsted stockings ; an old pair of corduroy 



X 



72 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

small-clothes ; a rusty razor ; a book of psalm tunea 
full of dog's-ears ; and a broken pitch-pipe. As tc 
the books and furniture of the schoolhouse, they be- 
longed to the community, excepting Cotton Mather's 
History of Witchcraft, a New England Almanac, and 
a book of dreams and fortune-telling ; in which last 
was a sheet of foolscap much scribbled and blotted in 
several fruitless attempts to make a copy of verses in 
honor of the heiress of Van Tassel. These magic 
books and the poetic scrawl were forthwith consigned 
to the flames by Hans Van Ripper ; who, from that 
time forward, determined to send his children no more 
to school ; observing that he never knew any good 
come of this same reading and writing. Whatever 
money the schoolmaster possessed, and he had received 
his quarter's pay but a day or two before, he must have 
had about his person at the time of his disappearance. 

The mysterious event caused much speculation at 
the church on the following Sunday. Knots of gazers 
and gossips were collected in the churchyard, at the 
bridge, and at the spot where the hat and pumpkin 
had been found. The stories of Brouwer, of Bones, 
and a whole budget of others were called to mind ; 
and when they had diligently considered them all, and 
compared them with the symptoms of the present case, 
they shook their heads, and came to the conclusion 
that Ichabod had been carried off by the Galloping 
Hessian. As he was a bachelor, and in nobody's 
debt, nobody troubled his head any more about him ; 
the school was removed to a different quarter of the 
Hollow, and another pedagogue reigned in his stead. 

It is true, an old farmer, who had been down to 
New York on a visit several years after, and from 
whom this account of the ghostly adventure was re- 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 78 

ceived, brought home the intelligence that Ichabod 
Crane was still alive ; that he had left the neighbor- 
hood partly through fear of the goblin and Hans Van 
Ripper, and partly in mortification at having been sud- 
denly dismissed by the heiress ; that he had changed 
his quarters to a distant part of the country ; had 
kept school and studied law at the same time ; had 
been admitted to the bar ; turned politician ; election- 
eered ; written for the newspapers ; and finally had 
been made a justice of the ten pound court.^ Brom 
Bones, too, who, shortly after his rival's disappear- 
ance conducted the blooming Katrina in triumph to 
the altar, was observed to look exceedingly knowing 
whenever the story of Ichabod was related, and always 
burst into a hearty laugh at the mention of the pump- 
kin ; which led some to suspect that he knew more 
about the matter than he chose to tell. 

The old country wives, however, who are the best 
judges of these matters, maintain to this day that 
Ichabod was spirited away by supernatural means ; 
and it is a favorite story often told about the neigh- 
borhood round the winter evening fire. The bridge 
became more than ever an object of superstitious awe; 
and that may be the reason why the road has been 
altered of late years, so as to approach the church by 
the border of the mill-pond. The schoolhouse being 
deserted soon fell to decay, and was reported to be 
haunted by the ghost of the unfortunate pedagogue; 
and the plough-boy, loitering homeward of a still sum= 
mer evening, has often fancied his voice at a distance, 
chanting a melancholy psalm tune among the tranquil 
solitudes of Sleepy Hollow. 

1 A court of justice authorized to deal with cases in which the 
amount of money involved does not exceed ten pounds. 



POSTSCRIPT. 

gt)UND IN THE HANDWRITING OF MR. KNICKERBOCKERc 

The preceding tale is given almost in the precise 
words in which I heard it related at a Corporation 
meeting of the ancient city of the Manhattoes,^ at 
which were present many of its sagest and most illus* 
trious burghers. The narrator was a pleasant, shabby, 
gentlemanly old fellow in pepper-and-salt clothes, with 
a sadly humorous face ; and one whom I strongly sus- 
pected of being poor, — he made such efforts to be 
entertaining. When his story was concluded there 
was much laughter and approbation, particularly from 
two or three deputy aldermen, who had been asleep 
the greater part of the time. There was, however, 
one tall, dry-looking old gentleman, with beetling eye- 
brows, who maintained a grave and rather severe face 
throughout ; now and then folding his arms, inclining 
his head, and looking down upon the floor, as if turn- 
ing a doubt over in his mind. He was one of your 
wary men, who never laugh but upon good grounds 
— when they have reason and the law on their sidcc 
When the mirth of the rest of the company had sub- 
sided, and silence was restored, he leaned one arm on 
the elbow of his chair, and sticking the other akimbo, 
demanded, with a slight but exceedingly sage motion 

^ The city of New York, as it is named in Diedrich Knicker- 
bocker s (Irving's) History of New York, 



POSTSCRIPT. T5 

of the head, and contraction of the brow, what was 
the moral of the story, and what it went to prove- 

The story-teller, who was just putting a glass of 
wine to his lipS) as a refreshment after his toils, 
paused for a moment, looked at his inquirer with an 
air of infinite deference, and, lowering the glass slowly 
to the table, observed that the story was intended 
most logically to prove : — 

"That there is no situation in life but has its ad- 
vantages and pleasures, provided we will but take a 
joke as we find it ; 

'' That, therefore, he that runs races with goblin 
troopers is likely to have rough riding of it ; 

" Ergo, for a country schoolmaster to be refused 
the hand of a Dutch heiress is a certain step to high 
preferment in the state." 

The cautious old gentleman knit his brows tenfold 
closer after this explanation, being sorely puzzled by 
the ratiocination of the syllogism ; while, methought, 
the one in pepper-and-salt eyed him with something 
of a triumphant leer. At length he observed that 
all this was very well, but still he thought the sto?y 
a little on the extravagant ; there were one or two 
points on v/hich he had his doubts. 

" Faith, sir," replied the story-teller, " as to that 
matter, I don't believe one half of it myself," 

Dc K. 



INTRODUCTION TO PHILIP OF FOKANOKET, 

King Philip's War was due to the steady encroachment 
of the English upon the forests and hunting-grounds of the 
Indians. For fifty-five years peaceful relations had been 
maintained between the colonists and the powerful tribe of 
the Wampanoags (Wawm-pa-nd^-agz), on whose lands 
Plymouth and other settlements had been planted. Philip^ 
chief of the tribe, foreseeing the ultimate destruction of his 
people, resolved to depart from the policy of Massasoit, his 
father, and to turn upon the colonists. Rumors of war 
preceded its outbreak for many years. It is still a matter 
of doubt whether hostilities began in an accident or as the 
result of a deliberate plot. Once opened, they were carried 
on in a vindictive and desperate spirit. The war began in 
June, 1675, at Swansea, in Plymouth colony. It involved 
^he Narragansetts and other New England tribes. Month 
after month saw scenes of ambush, assault, burning, pilla- 
ging, and butchery. The war was as savagely carried on 
by the English as by the Indians. It ended in the summer 
of 1676 through sheer exhaustion of the Indians. During 
this war thirteen towns were destroyed and many others 
suffered severely, six hundred buildings were burned, six 
hundred colonists were slain, many thousands suffered di- 
rectly from the losses that accompany war, and frightful 
expenses were rolled up, entailing burdens upon feeble and 
3})arsely settled communities that it took years to lighten. 
The mental anguish everywhere caused by the secrecy and 
cruelty of methods natural to Indian warfare, even wheD 
the dreaded blow did not fall, cannot be told. 



PHILIP OF POKANOKET. 77 

From two to three thousand Indians were killed or cap- 
tured, and the wretched remnants of the tribes whose power 
was broken either united with other tribes or, lingering 
about their old homes, ceased thereafter to be a serious 
menace to the colonies. 

The various remains of Indian tribes in Massachusetts 
to-day, some of them descendants of the Indians that sur- 
vived King Philip's War, number between one and two 
thousand souls. They are, to a certain extent, wards of the 
State of whose soil they were once the haughty owners. 



PHILIP OF POKANOKET. 

AN INDIAN MEMOIR. 

As monumental bronze unchanged his look ; 
A soul that pity touch'd, but never shook ; 
Train'd, from his tree-rock'd cradle to his bier, 
The fierce extremes of good and ill to brook 
Impassive — fearing but the shame of fear — 
A stoic of the woods — a man without a tear. 

Campbell. 

It is to be regretted that those early writers who 
treated of the discovery and settlement of America 
have not given us more particular and candid accounts 
of the remarkable characters that flourished in savage 
life. The scanty anecdotes which have reached us are 
full of peculiarity and interest ; they furnish us with 
nearer glimpses of human nature, and show what man 
is in a comparatively primitive state, and what he 
owes to civilization. There is something of the charm 
of discovery in lighting upon these wild and unex- 
plored tracts of human nature ; in witnessing, as it 
were, the native growth of moral sentiment ; and per- 
ceiving those generous and romantic qualities which 



78 WASHINGTON IRVING, 

have been artificially cultivated by society, vegetating 
in spontaneous hardihood and rude magnificence. 

In civilized life, where the happiness, and indeed 
almost the existence, of man depends so much upon 
the opinion of his fellow-men, he is constantly acting 
a studied part. The bold and peculiar traits of native 
character are refined away, or softened down by the 
levelling influence of what is termed good breeding ; 
and he practises so many petty deceptions, and affects 
so many generous sentiments, for the purposes of pop- 
ularity, that it is difficult to distinguish his real from 
his artificial character. The Indian, on the contrary, 
free from the restraints and refinements of polished 
life, and, in a great degree, a solitary and indepen- 
dent being, obeys the impulses of his inclination or 
the dictates of his judgment; and thus the attributes 
of his nature, being freely indulged, grow singly great 
and striking. Society is like a lawn, where every 
roughness is smoothed, every bramble eradicated, and 
where the eye is delighted by the smiling verdure of a 
velvet surface ; he, however, who would study nature 
in its wildness and variety, must plunge into the for- 
est, must explore the glen, must stem the torrent, and 
dare the precipice. 

These reflections arose on casually looking through 
a volume of early colonial history wherein are re- 
corded, with great bitterness, the outrages of the 
Indians, and their wars with the settlers of New Eng 
land. It is painful to perceive, even from these par 
tial narratives, how the footsteps of civilization may 
be traced in the blood of the aborigines ; how easily 
the colonists were moved to hostility by the lust of 
conquest ; how merciless and exterminating was theii 
warfare. The imagination shrinks at the idea, hovi 



PHILIP OF POKANOKET. 79 

many intellectual beings were hunted from the earth , 
how many brave and noble hearts, of nature's sterling 
coinage, were broken down and trampled in the dust ! 
Such was the fate of Philip of Pokanoket,^ an 
Indian warrior, whose name was once a terror through- 
out Massachusetts and Connecticut. He was the 
most distinguished of a number of contemporary sa- 
chems who reigned over the Pequods, the Narragan- 
setts, the Wampanoags, and the other eastern tribes^ 
at the time of the first settlement of New England : a 
band of native untaught heroes ; who made the most 
generous struggle of which human nature is capable ; 
fighting to the last gasp in the cause of their coun- 
try, without a hope of victory or a thought of renown. 
Worthy of an age of poetry, and fit subjects for 
local story and romantic fiction, they have left scarcely 
any authentic traces on the page of history, but stalk 

^ Po-ko-no'ket, now Bristol, Rhode Island. The^orthography 
of Indian names in this memoir is unsettled. The early colo- 
nists heard these names from Indian lips, hut thej could not 
spell them in a uniform way. The same Indian sometimes had 
several names. The same name showed minor diversities in 
pronunciation. The colonists were not exact in interpreting In- 
dian sounds. Moreover, they did not spell common English 
words with consistency. It was natural, therefore, that a great 
deal of confusion should appear hoth in their spelling and in 
their pronunciation of Indian names. Thus Philip's name ap- 
pears in various deeds and records under the following forms: 
Pometacom, Pumatacom, Pometacome, Metacom, Metacome, Meta- 
cum, Metacomet, Meiamo'cet, and so on. For Pokonoket may be 
found PoconoJcet, PocanaJcett, Pakanawkett, and Pawkunnawkeet ; 
for Miantoni'mo, Miantonimoh, Miantonomio^ Miantonomo, Mian.'' 
conomah, and Miantunnomah ; for Canon'chet, Quananchit, Qua' 
nanchett, and Quanonchet ; for Wet'amoe, Weetimoo and Welti' 
nore. Study of these variations reveals the pronunciation of 
ihe forms adopted by Irving. 



80 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

like gigantic shadows in the dim twilight of tradi- 
tion.^ 

When the Pilgrims, as the Plymouth settlers are 
called by their descendants, first took refuge on the 
shores of the New World, from the religious persecu- 
tions of the Old, their situation was to the last degree 
gloomy and disheartening. Few in number, and that 
number rapidly perishing away through sickness and 
hardships ; surrounded by a howling wilderness and 
savage tribes ; exposed to the rigors of an almost arc- 
tic winter, and the vicissitudes of an ever-shifting cli- 
mate ; their minds were filled with doleful forebodings, 
and nothing preserved them from sinking into despon- 
dency but the strong excitement of religious enthusi- 
asm. In this forlorn situation they were visited by 
Massasoit, chief sagamore of the Wampanoags, a 
powerful chief, who reigned over a great extent of 
country. Instead of taking advantage of the scanty 
number of the strangers, and expelling them from his 
territories into which they had intruded, he seemed at 
once to conceive for them a generous friendship, and 
extended towards them the rites of primitive hospital- 
ity. He came early in the spring to their settlement 
of New Plymouth,^ attended by a mere handful of fol- 
lowers ; entered into a solemn league of peace and 
amity ; sold them a portion of the soil, and promised 
to secure for them the good will of his savage allies. 
Whatever may be said of Indian perfidy, it is certain 

^ While correcting the proof-sheets of this article, the author 
is informed that a celebrated English poet has nearly finished an 
heroic poem on the story of Philip of Pokanoket. — W. I. 

2 Simply Plymouth, Massachusetts, which for a time was 
spoken of as New Plymouth to distinguish it from the town of 
the same name in England. 



PHILIP OF POKANOKET. 81 

that the integrity and good faith of Massasoit have 
never been impeached. He continued a firm and 
magnanimous friend of the white men ; suffering them 
to extend their possessions, and to strengthen them- 
selves in the land ; and betraying no jealousy of their 
increasing power and prosperity. Shortly before his 
death, he came once more to New Plymouth, with his 
son Alexander, for the purpose of renewing the cove 
nant of peace, and of securing it to his posterity. 

At this conference, he endeavored to protect the 
religion of his forefathers from the encroaching zeal 
of the missionaries ; and stipulated that no further 
attempt should be made to draw off his people from 
their ancient faith ; but, finding the English obsti- 
nately opposed to any such condition, he mildly relin- 
quished the demand. Almost the last act of his life 
was to bring his two sons,^ Alexander and Philip (as 
they had been named by the English), to the residence 
of a principal settler, recommending mutual kindness 
and confidence, and entreating that the same love 
and amity which had existed between the white men 
and himself might be continued afterwards with his 
children. The good old sachem died in peace, and 
was happily gathered to his fathers before sorrow 
came upon his tribe ; his children remained behind to 
experience the ingratitude of white men. 

^ " In Anno 1662, Plymouth Colony was in some Danger of 
being involved in Trouble by the Wampanoag Indians. After 
Massasoit was dead, his two Sons called Wamsutta and Metacomet 
[Irving gives the name as MetamoceQ came to the Court at 
Plymouth pretending high respect for the English, and therefore 
desired English Names might be imposed on them, whereupon 
the Court there named Wamsutta (the elder Brother) Alexander^ 
and Metacomet (the younger Brother) Philip. ^^ — Increase Mather. 
The English doubtless had in mind the famous Macedonian 
Warriors. 



82 WASHINGTON IRVING, 

His eldest son, Alexander, succeeded him. He was 
of a quick and impetuous temper, and proudly tena- 
cious of his hereditary rights and dignity. The intru- 
sive policy and dictatorial conduct of the strangers 
excited his indignation ; and he beheld with uneasi- 
ness their exterminating wars with the neighboring 
tribes. He was doomed soon to incur their hostility, 
being accused of plotting with the Narragansetts to 
rise against the English and drive them from the 
land. It is impossible to say whether this accusation 
was warranted by facts, or was grounded on mere sus- 
picions. It is evident, however, by the violent and 
overbearing measures of the settlers, that they had by 
this time begun to feel conscious of the rapid increase 
of their power, and to grow harsh and inconsiderate 
in their treatment of the natives. They dispatched 
an armed force to seize upon Alexander and to 
bring him before their courts. He was traced to his 
woodland haunts, and surprised at a hunting house, 
where he was reposing with a band of his followers, 
unarmed, after the toils of the chase. The suddenness 
of his arrest, and the outrage offered to his sovereign 
dignity, so preyed upon the irascible feelings of this 
proud savage as to throw him into a raging fever ; he 
was permitted to return home on condition of sending 
his son as a pledge for his re-appearance ; but the blow 
he had received was fatal, and before he reached hi& 
home he fell a victim to the agonies of a wounded spirit. 

The successor of Alexander was Metamocet, or 
King Philip, as he was called by the settlers, on 
account of his lofty spirit and ambitious temper. 
These, together with his well-known energy and enter- 
prise, had rendered him an object of great jealousy 
and apprehension, and he was accused of having 



PHILIP OF POKANOKET. 83 

always cherished a secret and implacable hostility to- 
wards the whites. Such may very probably, and very 
naturally, have been the case. He considered them as 
originally but mere intruders into the country, who 
had presumed upon indulgence, and were extending 
an influence baneful to savage life. He saw the 
whole race of his countrymen melting before them 
from the face of the earth ; their territories slipping 
from their hands, and their tribes becoming feeble, 
scattered, and dependent. It may be said that the 
soil was originally purchased by the settlers; but who 
does not know the nature of Indian purchases, in the 
early periods of colonization? The Europeans al- 
ways made thrifty bargains, through their superior 
adroitness in traffic ; and they gained vast accessions 
of territory, by easily-provoked hostilities. An uncul- 
tivated savage is never a nice inquirer into the refine- 
ments of law, by which an injury may be gradually 
and legally inflicted. Leading facts are all by which 
he judges; and it was enough for Philip to knov^ 
that before the intrusion of the Europeans his coun 
trymen were lords of the soil, and that now they were 
becoming vagabonds in the land of their fathers. 

But whatever may have been his feelings of general 
hostility, and his particular indignation at the treat- 
ment of his brother, he suppressed them for the pres- 
ent ; renewed the contract with the settlers ; and 
resided peaceably for many years at Pokanoket, or, as 
it was called by the English, Mount Hope, the ancient 
seat of dominion of his tribe. Suspicions, however, 
which were at first but vague and indefinite, began to 
acquire form and substance ; and he was at length 
charged with attempting to instigate the various east- 
ern tribes to rise at once, and, by a simultaneous 



84 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

effort, to throw off the yoke of their oppressors. It is 
difficult at this distant period to assign the proper 
credit due to these early accusations against the Indi- 
ans. There was a proneness to suspicion, and an 
aptness to acts of violence on the part of the whites, 
that gave weight and importance to every idle tale. 
Informers abounded where tale-bearing met witl 
countenance and reward, and the sword was readily 
unsheathed when its success was certain and it carved 
out empire. 

The only positive evidence on record against Philip 
is the accusation of one Sausaman, a renegade Indian, 
whose natural cunning had been quickened by a par- 
tial education which he had received among the set- 
tlers. He changed his faith and his allegiance two or 
three times with a facility that evinced the looseness 
of his principles. He had acted for some time as 
Philip's confidential secretary and counsellor, and had 
enjoyed his bounty and protection. Finding, however, 
that the clouds of adversity were gathering round his 
patron, he abandoned his service and went over to the 
whites ; and, in order to gain their favor, charged his 
former benefactor with plotting against their safety. 
A rigorous investigation took place. Philip and sev- 
eral of his subjects submitted to be exarnined, but 
nothing was proved against them. The settlers, how- 
ever, had now gone too far to retract ; they had pre- 
viously determined that Philip was a dangerous neigh- 
bor ; they had publicly evinced their distrust, and had 
done enough to insure his hostility ; according, there- 
fore, to the usual mode of reasoning in these cases, his 
destruction had become necessary to their security. 
Sausaman, the treacherous informer, was shortly after 
found dead in a pond, having fallen a victim to the 



PHILIP OF POKANOKET. 85 

vengeance of his tribe. Three Indians, one of whom 
was a friend and counsellor of Philip, were appre^ 
hended and tried, and, on the testimony of one very 
questionable witness, were condemned and executed as 
murderers. 

This treatment of his subjects and ignominious 
punishment of his friend outraged the pride and exas- 
perated the passions of Philip. The bolt which had 
fallen thus at his very feet awakened him to the gath- 
ering storm, and he determined to trust himself no 
longer in the power of the white men. The fate of 
his insulted and broken-hearted brother still rankled 
in his mind ; and he had a further warning in the 
tragical story of Miantonimo, a great sachem of the 
Narragansetts, who, after manfully facing his accus- 
ers before a tribunal of the colonists, exculpating 
himself from a charge of conspiracy, and receiving 
assurances of amity, had been perfidiously dispatched 
at their instigation. Philip therefore gathered his 
fighting men about him, persuaded all strangers that 
he could to join his cause, sent the women and chil- 
dren to the Narragansetts for safety, and wherever 
he appeared was continually surrounded by armed 
warriors. 

When the two parties were thus in a state of dis- 
trust and irritation, the least spark was sufficient to 
set them in a flame. The Indians, having weapons in 
their hands, grew mischievous, and committed various 
petty depredations. In one of their maraudings, a 
warrior was fired upon and killed by a settler. This 
was the signal for open hostilities ; the Indians pressed 
to revenge the death of their comrade, and the alarm 
of war resounded through the Plymouth colony. 

la the early chronicles of these dark and melan* 



86 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

clioly times, we meet with many indications of the 
diseased state of the public mind. The gloom of 
relisfious abstraction, and the wildness of their situa- 
tion, among trackless forests and savage tribes, had 
disposed the colonists to superstitious fancies, and had 
filled their imaginations with the frightful chimeras 
of witchcraft and spectrology.^ They were much 
given also to a belief in omens. The troubles with 
Pliilip and his Indians were preceded, we are told, by 
a variety of those awful warnings which forerun great 
and public calamities. The perfect form of an Indian 
bow appeared in the air at New Plymouth, which was 
looked upon by the inhabitants as a '' prodigious 
apparition." At Hadley, Northampton, and other 
towns in their neighborhood, " was heard the report 
of a great piece of ordnance, with the shaking of the 
earth and a considerable echo." Others were alarmed 
on a still, sunshiny morning by the discharge of guns 
and muskets; bullets seemed to whistle past them, 
and the noise of drums resounded in the air, seeming 
to pass away to the westward ; others fancied that 
they heard the galloping of horses over their heads ; 
and certain monstrous births which took place about 
the time filled the superstitious in some towns with 
doleful forebodings. Many of these portentous sights 
and sounds may be ascribed to natural phenomena; 
to the northern lights which occur vividly in those 
latitudes ; the meteors which explode in the air ; the 
casual rushing of a blast through the top branches of 
the forest ; the crash of falling trees or disrupted 
rocks ; and to those other uncouth sounds and echoes 
which will sometimes strike the ear so strangely 

^ To Irvine's mind this word means the supposed science that 
treats of apparitions. 



PHILIP OF POKANOKET. 87 

amidst the profound stillness of woodland solitudes. 
These may have startled some melancholy imagina- 
tions, may have been exaggerated by the love for the 
marvellous, and listened to with that avidity with 
W^hich we devour whatever is fearful and mysterious. 
The universal currency of these superstitious fancies^ 
and the grave record made of them by one of the 
learned men ^ of the day, are strongly characteristic 
of the times. 

The nature of the contest that ensued was such as 
too often distinguishes the warfare between civilized 
men and savages. On the part of the whites it was 
conducted with superior skill and success, but with a 
wastefulness of the blood and a disregard of the nat- 
ural rights of their antagonists ; on the part of the 
Indians it was waged with the desperation of men 
fearless of death, and who had nothing to expect 
from peace, but humiliation, dependence, and decay. 

The events of the war are transmitted to us by a 
worthy clergyman of the time, who dwells with hor- 
ror and indignation on every hostile act of the Indi- 
ans, however justifiable, while he mentions with 
applause the most sanguinary atrocities of the whites. 
Philip is reviled as a murderer and a traitor, without 
considering that he was a true born prince, gallantly 
fighting at the head of his subjects to avenge the 
wrongs of his family, to retrieve the tottering power 
of his line, and to deliver his native land from the 
oppression of usurping strangers. 

1 Rev. Increase Mather, pastor of the Old North Church in 
Boston for sixty-two years. He was born in 1639 and died in 
1723. Among his ninety-two distinct publications are full 
accounts of King Philip's War, in which popular superstitions 
and well authenticated facts are woven together after the fash- 
ion of the times. 



88 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

The project of a wide and simultaneous revolt, if 
such had really been formed, was worthy of a capa- 
cious mind, and, had it not been prematurely discov- 
ered, might have been overwhelming in its conse- 
quences. The war that actually broke out was but a 
war of detail, a mere succession of casual exploits 
and unconnected enterprises. Still it sets forth the 
military genius and daring prowess of Philip ; and 
wherever, in the prejudiced and passionate narrations 
that have been given of it, we can arrive at simple 
facts, we find him displaying a vigorous mind, a fer- 
tility in expedients, a contempt of suffering and hard- 
ship, and an unconquerable resolution, that command 
our sympathy and applause. 

Driven from his paternal domains at Mount Hope, 
he threw himself into the depths of those vast and 
trackless forests that skirted the settlements, and were 
almost impervious to anything but a wild beast or an 
Indian. Here he gathered together his forces, like 
the storm accumulating its stores of mischief in the 
bosom of the thunder-cloud, and would suddenly 
emerge at a time and place least expected, carrying 
havoc and dismay into the villages. There were now 
and then indications of these impending ravages that 
filled the minds of the colonists with awe and appre- 
hension. The report of a distant gun would perhaps 
be heard from the solitary woodland, where there was 
known to be no white man ; the cattle which had beei> 
wandering in the woods would sometimes return home 
wounded ; or an Indian or two would be seen lurking 
about the skirts of the forests, and suddenly disap- 
pearing, as the lightning will sometimes be seen play- 
ing silently about the edge of the cloud that i3 brew- 
ing up the tempest. 



PHILIP OF POKANOKET. 89 

Though sometimes pursued and even surrounded 
by the settlers, yet Philip as often escaped almost mi- 
raculously from their toils, and, plunging into the wil- 
derness, would be lost to all search or inquiry until he 
again emerged at some far distant quarter, laying the 
country desolate. Among his strongholds were the 
great swamps or morasses which extend in some part.^ 
of New England, composed of loose bogs of deep 
black mud, perplexed with thickets, brambles, rank 
weeds, the shattered and mouldering trunks of fallen 
trees, overshadowed by lugubrious hemlocks. The un- 
certain footing and the tangled mazes of these shaggy 
wilds rendered them almost impracticable to the white 
man, though the Indian could thread their labyrinths 
with the agility of a deer. Into one of these, the 
great swamp of Pocasset Neck, was Philip once driven 
with a band of his followers. The English did not 
dare to pursue him, fearing to venture into these dark 
and frightful recesses, where they might perish in fens 
and miry pits or be shot down by lurking foes. They 
therefore invested the entrance to the neck, and began 
to build a fort, with the thought of starving out the 
foe ; but Philip and his warriors wafted themselves 
on a raft over an arm of the sea, in the dead of night, 
leaving the women and children behind ; and escaped 
away to the westward, kindling the flames of war 
among the tribes of Massachusetts and the Nipmuck 
country,^ and threatening the colony of Connecticutr 

^ Written also Nipmug, Nipmuk, and Neepmuck. This coun- 
try was northwest of the lands of the Wampanoags, among 
whom the Pilgrims settled. It lay chiefly in the southern part 
of the Worcester County of to-day, but partly in northern Con- 
necticut. At the time of King Philip's War, it was within the 
jurisdiction of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay. An old writer 
tells how John Eliot, the apostle to the Indians, visited **the 
seven new praying towns in the Nipmug country " in 1663. 



90 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

In this way Philip became a theme of universal 
apprehension. The mystery in which he was envel- 
oped exaggerated his real terrors. He was an evil 
that walked in darkness, whose coming none could 
foresee, and against which none knew when to be on 
the alert. The whole country abounded with rumors 
and alarms. Philip seemed almost possessed of ubi- 
quity ; for, in whatever part of the widely extended 
frontier an irruption from the forest took place, Philip 
was said to be its leader. Many superstitious notions 
also were circulated concerning him. He was said to 
deal in necromancy, and to be attended by an old In- 
dian witch or prophetess, whom he consulted, and who 
assisted him by her charms and incantations. This 
indeed was frequently the case with Indian chiefs ; 
either through their own credulity, or to act upon that 
of their followers ; and the influence of the prophet 
and the dreamer over Indian superstitions has been 
fully evidenced in recent instances of savage warfare. 

At the time that Philip effected his escape from 
Pocasset, his fortunes were in a desperate condition. 
His forces had been thinned by repeated fights, and 
he had lost almost the whole of his resources. In this 
time of adversitv he found a faithful friend in Canon- 
chet, chief sachem of all the Narragansetts. He was 
the son and heir of Miantonimo, the great sachem, 
who, as already mentioned, after an honorable acquit- 
tal of the charge of conspiracy, had been privately 
put to death at the perfidious instigations of the set- 
tlers. " He was the heir," says the old chronicler, 
" of all his father's pride and insolence, as well as of 
his malice towards the English ; " he certainly was the 
heir of his insults and injuries, and the legitimate 
avenger of his murder. Though he had forborne to 



PHILIP OF POKANOKET. 91 

take an active part in this hopeless war, yet he re- 
ceived Philip and his broken forces with open arms, 
5^nd gave them the most generous countenance and 
support. This at once drew upon him the hostility of 
the English, and it was determined to strike a signal 
blow, that should involve both the sachems in one 
common ruin. A great force was therefore gathered 
tegether from Massachusetts, Plymouth,^ and Con- 
necticut, and was sent into the Narragansett country 
in the depth of winter, when the swamps, being frozen 
and leafless, could be traversed with comparative facil- 
ity, and would no longer afford dark and impenetra- 
ble fastnesses to the Indians. 

Apprehensive of attack, Canonchet had conveyed 
the greater part of his stores, together with the old, 
the infirm, the women and children of his tribe, to a 
strong fortress, where he and Philip had likewise 
drawn up the flower of their forces. This fortress, 
deemed by the Indians impregnable, was situated upon 
a rising mound or kind of island, of five or six acres, 
in the midst of a swamp ; it was constructed with a 
degree of judgment and skill vastly superior to what 
is usually displayed in Indian fortification, and indi- 
cative of the martial genius of these two chieftains. 

Guided by a renegado Indian, the English pene- 
trated, through December snows, to this stronghold, 
and came upon the garrison by surprise. The fight 
was fierce and tumultuous. The assailants were re- 
pulsed m their first attack, and several of their brav- 
est officers were shot down in the act of storming the 
fortress, sword in hand. The assault was renewed 

^ It should be remembered that Massachusetts and Plymouth 
were at this time separate colonies, each with its own governor 
and legislative body. They were not united until 1692- 



92 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

with greater success. A lodgment was effected. The 
Indians were driven from one post to another. They 
disputed their ground mch by inch, fighting with the 
fury of despair. Most of their veterans were cut to 
pieces ; and after a long and bloody battle, Philip and 
Canonchet, with a handful of surviving warriors, re- 
treated from the fort, and took refuge in the thickets 
of the surrounding forest. 

The victors set fire to the wigwams and the fort ; 
ihe whole was soon in a blaze ; many of the old men, 
the women, and the children perished in the flames. 
This last outrage overcame even the stoicism of the 
lavage. The neighboring woods resounded with the 
yells of rage and despair uttered by the fugitive war- 
nors as they beheld the destruction of their dwellings, 
and heard the agonizing cries of their wives and off- 
spring. " The burning of the wigwams," says a con- 
temporary writer,^ " the shrieks and cries of the 
women and children, and the yelling of the warriors, 
exhibited a most horrible and affecting scene, so that 
it greatly moved some of the soldiers." The same 
writer cautiously adds, '' They were in much doubt 
then, and afterwards seriously inquired, whether burn- 
ing their enemies alive could be consistent with hu- 
manity and the benevolent principles of the gospel." 

The fate of the brave and generous Canonchet is 
worthy of particular mention : the last scene of his 
life is one of the noblest instances on record of Indiai? 
magnanimity. 

Broken down in his power and resources by this 
signal defeat, yet faithful to his ally and to the hap- 
less cause which he had espoused, he rejected all over- 

^ Rev. W. Riiggles, from whose maDusciipts the (^lu^tat^onc 
are made. 



PHILIP OF POKANOKET, 93 

tures of peace, offered on condition of betraying 
Philip and his followers, and declared that '' he would 
fight it out to the last man, rather than become a ser- 
vant to the English." His home being destroyed, his 
country harassed and laid waste by the incursions of 
the conquerors, he was obliged to wander away to the 
banks of the Connecticut, where he formed a rallying 
point to the whole body of western Indians, and laid 
waste several of the English settlements. 

Early in the spring he departed on a hazardous 
expedition, with only thirty chosen men, to penetrate 
to Seaconck, in the vicinity of Mount Hope, and to 
procure seed-corn to plant for the sustenance of his 
troops. This little band of adventurers had passed 
safely through the Pequod country,^ and were in the 
centre of the Narragansett, resting at some wigwams 
near Pautucket River, when an alarm was given of an 
approaching enemy. Having but seven men by him 
at the time, Canonchet dispatched two of them to the 
top of a neighboring hill, to bring intelligence of the 
foe. 

Panic-struck by the appearance of a troop of Eng- 
lish and Indians rapidly advancing, they fled in 
breathless terror past their chieftain, without stopping 
to inform him of the danger. Canonchet sent another 
scout, who did the same. He then sent two more, one 
of whom, hurrying back in confusion and affright, 
told him that the whole British army was at hand. 
Canonchet saw there was no choice but immediate 
flight. He attempted to escape round the hill, but 
was perceived and hotly pursued by the hostile Indi- 
ans and a few of the fleetest of the English. Finding 
the swiftest pursuer close upon his heels, he threw off 

^ Southern Connecticut. 



94 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

first his blanket, then his silver-laced coat and belt of 
peag,^ by which his enemies knew him to be Canon- 
chet, ami redoubled the eagerness of pursuit. 

At length, in dashing through the river, his foot 
slipped upon a stone, and he fell so deep as to wet his 
gun. This accident so struck him with despair that, 
as he afterwards confessed, " his heart and his bowels 
turned within him, and he became like a rotten stick, 
void of strength." 

To such a degree was he unnerved that, being 
seized by a Pequod Indian within a short distance of 
the river, he made no resistance, though a man of 
great vigor of body and boldness of heart. But on 
being made prisoner, the whole pride of his spirit 
rose within him ; and from that moment we find, in 
the anecdotes given by his enemies, nothing but 
repeated flashes of elevated and prince-like heroism. 
Being questioned by one of the English who first 
came up with him, and who had not attained his 
twenty-second year, the proud-hearted warrior, looking 
with lofty contempt upon his youthful countenance, 
ii"plied, " You are a child — you cannot understand 
matters of war — let your brother or your chief come 
• — him will I answer." 

Though repeated offers were made to him of his 
life, on condition of submitting with his nation to the 
English, yet he rejected them with disdain, and re- 
fused to send any proposals of the kind to the great 
body of his subjects, saying that he knew none of 
them would comply. Being reproached with his 
breach of faith towards the whites, his boast that he 

^ Pronounced /)ee^ : bits of shells, rounded and polished, and 
strung on a thread. These beads were used as money, the black 
and purple varieties being valued at twice as much as the white. 



PHILIP OF POKANOKET. 95 

would not deliver up a Wampanoag nor the paring 
of a Wampanoag's nail, and his threat that he would 
burn the English alive in their houses, he disdained 
to justify himself, haughtily answering that others 
were as forward for the war as himself, and "he 
desired to hear no more thereof." 

So noble and unshaken a spirit, so true a fidelity to 
his cause and his friend, might have touched the feel- 
ings of the generous and the brave ; but Canonchet 
was an Indian; a being towards whom war had no 
courtesy, humanity no law, religion no compassion, — 
he was condemned to die. The last words of his that 
are recorded are worthy the greatness of his soul. 
When sentence of death was passed upon him, he 
observed ''that he liked it well, for he should die 
before his heart w^as soft, or he had spoken anything 
unworthy of himself." His enemies gave him the 
death of a soldier, for he was shot at Stoningham, by 
three young sachems of his own rank. 

The defeat of the Narragansett fortress and the 
death of Canonchet were fatal blows to the fortunes 
of King Philip. He made an ineffectual attempt to 
raise a head of war, by stirring up the Mohawks ^ to 
take arms ; but though possessed of the native talents 
of a statesman, his arts were counteracted by the supe- 
rior arts of his enlightened enemies, and the terror of 
their warlike skill began to subdue the resolution of 
the neighboring tribes. The unfortunate chieftain 
saw himself daily stripped of power, and his ranks 
rapidly thinning around him. Some were suborned 
by the whites ; others fell victims to hunger and 

^ One of the five (subsequently six) tribes that made up the 
great New York confederacy known as the Five Nations. The 
Mohawks dwelt in the valley of the river that bears their name. 



96 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

fatigue, and to the frequent attacks by which thej 
were harassed. His stores were all captured ; his 
chosen friends were swept away from before his eyes ; 
his uncle was shot down by his side ; his sister was 
carried into captivity ; and in one of his narrow 
escapes he was compelled to leave his beloved wife 
and only son to the mercy of the enemy. '' His ruin," 
says the historian, " being thus gradually carried on, 
his misery was not prevented, but augmented thereby; 
being himself made acquainted with the sense and 
experimental feeling of the captivity of his children, 
loss of friends, slaughter of his subjects, bereavement 
of all family relations, and being stripped of all out- 
ward comforts, before his own life should be taken 
away." 

To fill up the measure of his misfortunes, his own 
followers began to plot against his life, that by sacri- 
ficing him they might purchase dishonorable safety. 
Through treachery, a number of his faithful adher- 
ents, the subjects of Wetamoe, an Indian princess of 
Pocasset, a near kinswoman and confederate of Philip, 
were betrayed into the hands of the enemy. Wetamoe 
was among them at the time, and attempted to make 
her escape by crossing a neighboring river ; either 
exhausted by swimming, or starved with cold and 
hunger, she was found dead and naked near the 
water side. But persecution ceased not at the grave; 
even death, the refuge of the wretched, where the 
wicked commonly cease from troubling, was no pro- 
tection to this outcast female, whose great crime was 
a,ffectionate fidelity to her kinsman and her friend. 
Her corpse was the object of unmanly and dastardly 
v^engeance ; the head was severed from the body and 
jet upon a pole, and was thus exposed, at Taunton, to 



PHILIP OF POKANOKET. 97 

the view of her captive subjects. They immediately 
recognized the features of their unfortunate queen, 
and were so affected at this barbarous spectacle that, 
we are told, they broke forth into the " most horrid 
and diabolical lamentations." 

However Philip had borne up against the compli- 
cated miseries and misfortunes that surrounded him, 
the treachery of his followers seemed to wring his 
heart and reduce him to despondency. It is said that 
" he never rejoiced afterwards, nor had success in any 
of his designs." The spring of hope was broken — 
the ardor of enterprise was extinguished; he looked 
around, and all was danger and darkness ; there was 
no eye to pity, nor any arm that could bring deliver- 
ance. With a scanty band of followers, who still 
remained true to his desperate fortunes, the unhappy 
Philip wandered back to the vicinity of Mount Hope, 
the ancient dwelling of his fathers. Here he lurked 
about, '' like a spectre, among the scenes of former 
power and prosperity, now bereft of home, of family 
and friend." There needs no better picture of his des- 
titute and piteous situation, than that furnished by 
the homely pen of the chronicler, who is unwarily 
enlisting the feelings of the reader in favor of the 
hapless warrior whom he reviles. '' Philip," he says^ 
" like a savage wild beast, having been hunted by the 
English forces through the woods above a hundred 
miles backward and forward, at last was driven to 
his own den upon Mount Hope, where he retired 
with a few of his best friends into a swamp, which 
proved but a prison to keep him fast till the messen- 
gers of death came by divine permission to execute 
vengeance upon him." 

Even in this last refuge of desperation and despair, 



98 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

a sullen grandeur gathers round his memory. We pic* 
ture him to ourselves seated among his careworn fol- 
lowers, brooding in silence over his blasted fortunes^ 
and acquiring a savage sublimity from the wildness 
and dreariness of his lurking-place. Defeated but 
not dismayed, crushed to the earth but not humili- 
ated, he seemed to grow more haughty beneath dis- 
aster and to experience a fierce satisfaction in drain- 
ing: the last dres's of bitterness. Little minds are 
tamed and subdued by misfortune ; but great minds 
rise above it. The very idea of submission awakened 
fche fury of Philip, and he smote to death one of his 
followers who proposed an expedient of peace. The 
brother of the victim made his escape, and in revenge 
betrayed the retreat of his chieftain. A body of white 
men and Indians were immediately dispatched to the 
swamp where Philip lay crouched, glaring with fury 
and despair. Before he was aware of their approach, 
they had begun to surround him. In a little while he 
saw five of his trustiest followers laid dead at his feet ; 
all resistance was vain ; he rushed forth from his cov- 
ert, and made a headlong attempt to escape, but w^as 
shot through the heart by a renegado Indian of his 
own nation. 

Such is the scanty story of the brave but unfortu- 
nate King Philip ; persecuted while living, slandered 
and dishonored when dead. If, however, we consider 
even the prejudiced anecdotes furnished us by his ene- 
mies, we may perceive in them traces of amiable and 
lofty character, sufficient to awaken sympathy for his 
fate and respect for his memory. We find that 
amidst all the harassing cares and ferocious passions 
of constant warfare, he was alive to the softer feelings 
of connubial love and paternal tenderness, and to the 



PHILIP OF POKANOKET. 99 

generous sentiment of friendship. The captivity of 
his " beloved wife and only son " is mentioned with 
exultation, as causing him poignant misery ; the death 
of any near friend is triumphantly recorded as a new 
blow on his sensibilities ; but the treachery and deser- 
tion of many of his followers, in whose affections he 
liad confided, is said to have desolated his heart, and 
to have bereaved him of all further comfort. He was 
a patriot, attached to his native soil ; a prince, true to 
his subjects, and indignant of their wrongs ; a sol- 
dier, daring in battle, firm in adversity, patient of 
fatigue, of hunger, of every variety of bodily suffer- 
ing, and ready to perish in the cause he had espoused. 
Proud of heart, and with an untamable love of nat- 
ural liberty, he preferred to enjoy it among the beasts 
Df the forests, or in the dismal and famished recesses 
of swamps and morasses, rather than bow his haughty 
spirit to submission, and live dependent and despised 
in the ease and luxury of the settlements. With 
heroic qualities and bold achievements that would 
have graced a civilized warrior, and have rendered 
him the theme of the poet and the historian, he lived 
a wanderer and a fugitive in his native land, and went 
down, like a lonely bark foundering amid darkness 
and tempest, — without a pitying eye to weep his fall 
or a friendly hand to record his struggle. 



EXPLANATORY NOTES. 

RIP VAN WINKLE. 

Rip Van Winkle and Tke Legend of Sleepy Hollow are the two 
pieces of writing by which Irving is best known to-day. They 
are in themselves excellent stories, and they have the added in- 
terest, from a literary point of view, of first exemplif3dng the 
form in which the short story was to become established during 
the nineteenth century. This form afterwards was brought to 
higher artistic perfection and wider general application by such 
writers as Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Bret 
Harte in America, and Robert Louis Stevenson, Rud3^ard Kip- 
hng, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in England. A very striking 
view of the development of the short story may be obtained by 
reading the following examples in the order given: The Black 
Cat and The Fall of the House of Usher ^ by Poe; Howe^s Mas- 
querade, by Hawthorne; Tennessee's Partner, by Bret Harte; 
The Sieur de Maletroifs Door, by Stevenson; The Man Who 
Would be King and The Drums of the Fore and Aft, by Kipling; 
Silver Blaze, by Conan Doyle. 

The story of Rip Van Winkle has been dramatized by Dion 
Boucicault, and the part of Rip himself was for many years 
finely interpreted by Joseph Jefferson. 

PAGE 

10 Fort Christina : a fort on the Delaware established by the 
Swedes and captured by Stuyvesant in 1655. 

termagant: scolding, bad-tempered. The word comes 
from the devil-character Termagant in the old Miracle 
plays. 

12 galligaskins: loose breeches. 

13 a gallows air : a guilty or downcast look. 

a rubicund portrait: a sign-board with a highly-colored 
picture of King George III. 

14 the most gigantic word: We are reminded of the school- 
master in Goldsmith's Deserted Village: 

While words of learndd length and thundering sound 
Amazed the gaping rustics ranged around; 
And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew 
That one small head could carry all he knew. 

junto: a political club, a faction. From the Spsmish junta, 
council. 

virago: a violent, turbulent woman. 



ii WASHINGTON IRVING. 

PAGE 

15 shagged: covered with bushes. See Scott, Lay of the Last 
Minstrel: 

Land of brown heath and shaggy wood, 
Land of the mountain and the flood. 

16 jerkin: short coat, jacket. 

17 outlandish: foreign. 

doublets: close-fitting body-garments, with or without 
sleeves. 

sugar-loaf hat: hat with a high, rounded crown. In those 
days sugar was manufactured and sold in the form of 
" loaves "; these were cone-shaped, and about a foot high. 

18 hanger: short curved sword, 
roses : rosettes of ribbon. 

Dominie : minister — the term was usually apphed to a 
schoolmaster. 

Hollands: gin made in Holland. 

19 firelock: or "flintlock," a gun in which the charge was 
ignited by the hammer striking a spark from a piece of 
flint. The percussion cap was invented later. 

roisters: revellers, roysterers. 

22 a red night cap: a "liberty cap," placed on top of a lib- 
erty pole. 

23 phlegm: apathy, dullness. 

Babylonish jargon : a mere confusion of words. The refer- 
ence is to the Bible story of the Tower of Babel — see 
Genesis xi. 

Federal or Democrat: After the Revolution the country 
was divided into two political parties. The Federalists, 
with Hamilton at their head, believed in a strong central 
government; while the Democrats, led by Jefferson, wished 
to reserve many local powers to the individual states. 

a tory: the "tories" were those who remained faithful to 
the British Government. 
28 Hendrick Hudson : Henry Hudson was a famous English 
sailor who discovered the Hudson River in 1609, while in 
the service of the Dutch East India Company. He sailed 
up as far as the site of Albany, hunting for a short route to 
India. He was afterwards employed by the British Gov- 
ernment in a similar search and was eventually cast adrift 
in an open boat in Hudson's Bay by his mutinous crew 
(1611). 

the Half -Moon: the ship in which the voyage up the 
Hudson was made. 

the great city called by his name: an odd slip on Irving's 
part — New York was never named after Hudson. 

Note. This passage, as well as the Prefatory Note to the 
story, gives an excellent idea of Irving's quiet humor. He 
revives the famihar figure of Diedrich Knickerbocker in 



30 



EXPLANATORY NOTES. iii 

order to bestow upon the tale a pleasant air of historical 
accuracy. 

Questions and Topics for Study. 

Which parts of the story seem to you to be best — the charsc- 
:er drawing, the incidents in the hollow, or the descriptions of 
^scenery? Discuss fully. 

Write an imaginary conversation between Mr. DooHttle and 
the "self-important man" on the subject of Rip's return. 

Do you know of any story, other than Rip Van Winkle, 
where the plot turns upon prolonged absence? 

THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 
The charm of this story hes in its leisurely movement, its 
pleasing and varied descriptive passages, and the touches 
throughout of shghtly malicious humor. It is as if Irving him- 
self stood by, watching with a smile the pecuharities of the 
schoolmaster. 

PAGE 

33 Tarry Town: The purchase of "Sunnyside" by Irving is 
mentioned in a letter to his brother Peter in 1835: "You 
have been told, no doubt, of a purchase I have made of ten 
acres, lying at the foot of Oscar's farm on the river bank. 
It is a beautiful spot, capable of being made a little para- 
dise. There is a small stone cottage on it, built about a cen- 
tury since, and inhabited by one of the Van Tassels. My 
idea is to make a little nookery somewhat in the Dutch 
style, quaint but unpretending." 

original Dutch settlers : The region about New York and 
the Lower Hudson was settled by emigrants sent out by 
the Dutch West India Company in 1623-29. 

34 Hessian trooper : The Hessians were soldiers from Hesse, 
Germany, hired by the British Government during the 
Revolution to fight in AmeTica. The custom of using mer- 
cenary soldiers was common at the time. After the war the 
Hessians were offered the choice of being sent home or of 
taking up farm lands in the British Colony of Nova Scotia. 
Many of them accepted the latter offer, and their descend- 
ants may be found in the original district to-day. 

35 back to the churchyard: It was an ancient belief that 
ghosts must return to their place before "cock-crow." 

39 whilom: formerly, once upon a time. An old-fashioned 
word, introduced purposely, to give a flavor to the story. 

carried away the palm: won a victory over. A palm 
branch was the ancient sign of victory; there is a well- 
known Latin proverb, ^'Palmam qui meruit ferat" — "let 
him who deserves it bear the palm." 

41 harbinger: here, one who gives warning. The word 



iv WASHINGTON IRVING. 

PAGE 

originally meant an officer who was sent before a royal 
party to arrange for lodging and entertainment. 

varlet: wretch — used contemptuously. The word has 
deteriorated in meaning; originally it signified a boy of noble 
birth who was in training for knighthood. 

42 fearful pleasure: pleasure that is full of fears. Compare 
the hues from Gray's Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton 
College J where, speaking of truant schoolboys, he says: 

They hear a voice in every wind, 
And snatch a fearful joy. 

43 perambulations: wanderings about. 

46 chanticleer: the cock. 

craving that quarter: asking for mercy. "Quarter" 
originally meant "peace," "friendship." 

47 linsey-woolsey: coarse cloth made of a mixture of linen 
and wool. 

Indian corn: what we call to-day, simply, "corn." Itwa& 
termed Indian corn by the early English settlers, to dis- 
* tinguish it from wheat, which was (and still is) known as 
"corn" in England. 

gaud: bright ornament. 

knight-errant: The best example of the true knight- 
errant to be found in fiction is the Black Knight in Ivanhoe, 

48 Herculean: gigantic. Hercules was the hero of Greek 
myth, famous for his strength. 

Tartar: the Tartars were a race of wild nomadic horse- 
men, who inhabited the southern steppes of Russia. 

49 rantipole: wild, rough. An unusual word. 

50 supple-jack: a climbing plant with a strong, supple stem. 
53 ferule : cane. The word is no longer used in this sense. 

a negro : slaves were not uncommon in the North at the 
period of the story. There were a good many of them in 
New York at the time of Irving's youth. 

cap of Mercury: Mercury, the messenger of the gods, 
was represented as wearing a close-fitting winged cap. 

petty embassies: trivial errands. 

57 The sun gradually wheeled: This passage contains a con- 
trolled and effective description of a noble scene. It should 
be compared with the passage in Rip Van Winkle beginning 
"In a long ramble of the kind," on page 15. 

It was towards evening: Here we have an almost first- 
hand account of a picturesque gathering. Note the fine 
choice of descriptive epithets, in this and the preceding 
paragraph. 

58 queued: gathered into a pig-tail. Long hair for men was 
the fashion of the time. The use of an "eelskin" would 
seem to us a somewhat unpleasant manner of arranging 
the queue. 



EXPLANATORY NOTES. V 

PAGE 

59 Heaven bless the mark! An exclamatory expression, 
here used humorously. The origin of the phrase is un- 
certain; the following explanation is taken from Brewer's 
Dictionary of Phrase and Fable: "In archery, when an 
archer shot well it was customary to cry out * God save the 
mark ! ' — that is, prevent anyone coming after to hit the 
same mark and displace my arrow. Ironically it was said to 
a novice whose arrow was nowhere." 

want: lack. 

60 St. Vitus : There was an old superstition in some parts of 
Europe that good health could be ensured for a year by 
dancing before an image of this saint on the occasion of his 
festival. The name **St. Vitus's dance" is given to a nerv- 
ous disorder which affects the limbs. 

61 There was the story: note the typical irony of this para- 
graph. 

White Plains : a village about twenty miles north of New 
York, where a victory was gained by the British under 
Howe over the Americans under Washington, on October 
28, 1776. 

62 Major Andre: an officer in the British army during the 
Revolutionary War. He was chosen to arrange with Arnold 
for the transfer of West Point to British possession. He 
secured from Arnold maps and plans, but was captured at 
Tarry town, and executed as a spy. 

63 arrant jockey: unmitigated cheat. 

should have won it: would certainly have won it. 
"Should," in the sense of "would" or "ought to," is now 
obsolete, but was good usage at least as late as 1859, for 
we find it in Dickens's Tale of Two Cities, Book I, chapter v: 
" He should have been of a hot temperament, for, although 
it was a bitter day, he wore no coat." 

o4 pillions: pads or cushions placed behind the saddle and 
adjusted for a second rider. 

chapfallen: gloomy, "down in the mouth." 

69 stave : a few bars from a piece of music. 

71 stocks: A "stock" was a stiff band of horse-hair or 
leather, covered with some lighter material and fastened 
behind with a buckle. 

72 small-clothes: knee-breeches. 

pitch-pipe: a small instrument used to give the note in 
starting a tune. 

74 The Postscript is introduced, like the Note at the end of 
Rip Van Winkle, to give a touch of pretended reality. 

sadly: solemnly. 

one of your wary men: one who was always on his guard. 
The word "your" is used in a colloquial sense. 

75 Ergo: therefore. A word employed by old-time logicians 
in stating the conclusion of an argument. 



vi WASHINGTON IRVING, 

puzzled by the ratiocination of the syllogism : puzzled by 
the line of reasoning in the argument. A ** syllogism'* is 
argument reduced to its lowest terms, in which two "prem- 
ises" lead to a "conclusion." For example: 

All men are mortal; 
I am a man; 
Therefore, I am mortal. 

The syllogism of the story-teller is, of course, pure nonsense^ 

Questions and Topics for Study. 

Write a short theme on one of the following topics: 

a. The Village Junto. 

b. School-teaching in Sleepy Hollow. 

c. A Riverside Farm-house. 

Describe a person with whom you are familiar, using methods 
oimilar to those employed in Rip Van Winkle and The Legend 
of Sleepy Hollow. 

In writing a theme about the Dutch settlements along the 
Hudson River, what help would you secure (a) from your school 
history, and (b) from Irving's stories ? 

PHILIP OF POKANOKET. 

It has been said that Irving was a story-teller rather than a 
historian. This sketch offers a fair test of the truth of the state- 
ment: he is more interested throughout, one can see, in the nar- 
rative qualities of the facts than in the facts themselves. Hence 
wx find here some material which does not bear directly on the 
subject. He was handicapped, perhaps, because he was writing 
at second hand — others had told the same story before him. 
With the present essay should be compared another of similar 
nature — Traits of Indian Character. Both arouse our interest 
and sympathy rather than our intellectual approval. 

PAGE 

79 sachems: chiefs, rulers. 

80 sagamore : Indian of high rank — the word has about 
the same significance as "sachem." 

83 a nice enquirer: close, or exact. 

85 mauraudings : forays, expeditions for plunder. 

86 chimeras : horrible stories. The Chimera was a fabulous 
beast, part lion, part goat, and part dragon. 

89 toils: snares, ambushes. 

perplexed with thickets: an unusual but effective phrase 
descriptive of tangled w^oodland. 

lugubrious hemlocks: melancholy, gloomy, 
wafted themselves: sailed. 

90 ubiquity: the quahty of being everywhere at once, 
necromancy: magic. 

95 suborned: won over by bribery. 



EXPLANATORY NOTES. vii 

PAGE 

96 starved: killed. Originally, *' starve" meant "die"; it is 

now used only of death from hunger. 
98 shot through the heart: King Philip was slain on August 

12, 1676. 

Questions and Topics for Study. 

Discuss the questions at issue between King Philip and the 
Colonists. Which side do you think was in the right? 

Compare Irving's methods (a) as a story-teller and (b) as an 
historian. Which do j^ou consider the more effective? 

Find some instances of the treatment of the Indians (a) b^ 
the Colonists, (b) by the United States Government, 



%f^t Kttersioe ILtterature ^ttite 



THE VOYAGE 

AND 

OTHER ENGLISH ESSAYS 



CONTENTS 



The Author*s Account of Himself 1 

The Voyage 5 

Rural Life in England 13 

The Country Church 22 

The Angler 29 

The Stage-coach 41 

Christmas Day 50 

The Spectre Bridegroom 68 

Westminster Abbey 88 

The Mutability of Literature 105 

Stratford-on-Avon 120 

L'Envoy 145 

Explanatory Notes, with Questions and Topics for 

Study viii 



The Selections from "The Sketch Book" included in 
this'number of The Riverside Literature Series are used by 
permission of, and by arrangement with, Messrs. G. P. Put- 
nam's Sons, the authorized publishers of Irving's Works. 



COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

Copyright, 1 891, by Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



CAMBRIDGE • MASSACHUSETTS 
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. 



WASHINGTON IRVING. 



THE AUTHOR'S ACCOUNT OF HIMSELF. 

" I am of this mind with Homer, that as the snaile that crept out of her shel wa 
turned eftsoones into a toad, and thereby was forced to make a stoole to sit on ; 
so the traveller that stragleth from his owne country is in a short time transf orme(*N 
into so monstrous a shape, that he is faine to alter his mansion with hismannerb; 
and to live where he can, not where he would." — Lyly^s Euphues.^ 

I WAS always fond of visiting new scenes, and 
observing strange characters and manners. Even 
when a mere child I began my travels, and made 
many tours of discovery into foreign parts and un- 
known regions of my native city, to the frequent 
alarm of my parents, and the emolument of the 
town crier. As I grew into boyhood, I extended the 
range of my observations. My holiday afternoons 
were spent in rambles about the surrounding country. 
I made myself familiar with all its places famous ir 
history or fable. I knew every spot where a murder 
or robbery had been committed, or a ghost seen. I 
visited the neighboring villages, and added greatly to 
my stock of knowledge, by noting their habits and 
customs, and conversing with their savages and great 
men. I even journeyed one long summer's day to the 

^ Joliii Lyly, an English dramatic poet, was born in 1553 and 
died about 1600. He published in 1579 Euphues: the Anatomy 
of Wity a book famous for its affected and dainty style, and fol 
its influence on public taste in the times of Elizabeth, 



2 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

summit of the most distant hill, whence I stretched my 
eye over many a mile of terra incognita,^ and was 
astonished to find how vast a globe I inhabited. 

This rambling propensity strengthened with my 
years. Books of voyages and travels became my 
passion, and in devouring their contents, I neglected 
the regular exercises of the school. How wistfully 
would I wander about the pier-heads in fine weather, 
and watch the parting ships, bound to distant climes 
— with what longing eyes would I gaze after their 
lessening sails, and waft myself in imagination to the 
ends of the earth ! 

Further reading and thinking, though they brought 
this vague inclination into more reasonable boimds, 
only served to make it more decided. I visited various 
parts of my own country ; and had I been merely a 
lover of fine scenery, I should have felt little desire to 
seek elsewhere its gratification : for on no country had 
the charms of nature beei? more prodigally lavished. 
Her mighty lakes, like oceans of liquid silver; her 
mountains, with their bright aerial tints ; her valleys, 
teeming with wild fertility ; her tremendous cataracts, 
thundering in their solitudes; her boundless plains, 
waving with spontaneous verdure; her broad deep 
rivers, rolling in solemn silence to the ocean; her 
trackless forests, where vegetation puts forth all its 
magnificence; her skies, kindling with the magic oi 
isummer clouds and glorious sunshine, — no, never 
need an American look beyond his own country for 
the sublime and beautiful of natural scenery. 

But Europe held forth the charms of storied and 
poetical association. There were to be seen the mas- 
terpieces of art, the refinements of highlj^ cultivated 
^ Ter'ra iiicog'iiita, land unknown^ 



THE AUTHOR'S ACCOUNT OF HIMSELF, '6 

society, the quaint peculiarities of ancient and local 
custom. My native country was full of youtliful 
promise; Europe was rich in the accumulated trea- 
sures of age. Her very ruins told the history of times 
gone by, and every mouldering stone was a chronicle. 
I longed to wander over the scenes of renowneJ 
achievement — to tread, as it were, in the footsteps 
of antiquity — to loiter about the ruined castle — to 
meditate on the falling tower — to escape, in short, 
from the common-place realities of the present, and 
lose myself among the shadowy grandeurs of the past. 

I had, besides all this, an earnest desire to see the 
great men of the earth. We have, it is true, our 
great men in America : not a city but has an ample 
share of them. I have mingled among them in my 
time, and been almost withered by the shade into 
which they cast me ; for there is nothing so baleful to 
a small man as the shade of a great one, particularly 
the great man of a city. But I was anxious to see 
the great men of Europe ; for I had read in the works 
of various philosophers, that all animals degenerated 
in America, and man among the number. A great 
man of Europe, thought I, must therefore be as supe- 
rior to a great man of America, as a peak of the Alps 
to a highland of the Hudson ; and in this idea I was 
confirmed, by observing the comparative importance 
and swelling magnitude of many English travellers 
among us, who, I was assured, were very little people 
in their own country. I will visit this land of wonders, 
thought I, and see the gigantic race from which I am 
degenerated. 

It has been either my good or evil lot to have my 
roving passion gratified. I have wandered through 
different countries and witnessed many of the shifting 



4 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

scenes of life. I cannot say that I have studied thens 
with the eye of a philosopher, but rather with the 
sauntering gaze with which humble lovers of the pic- 
turesque stroll from the window of one print-shop to 
another; caught sometimes by the delineations of 
beauty, sometimes by the distortions of caricature, 
and sometimes by the loveliness of landscape. As it 
is the fashion for modern tourists to travel pencil in 
hand, and bring home their portfolios filled with 
sketches, I am disposed to get up a few for the enter- 
tainment of my friends. When, however, I look over 
the hints and memorandums I have taken down for 
the purpose my heart almost fails me, at finding how 
my idle humor has led me aside from the great object 
studied by every regular traveller who would make a 
book. I fear I shall give equal disappointment with 
an unlucky landscape-painter, who had travelled on 
the continent, but, following the bent of his vagrant 
inclination, had sketched in nooks, and corners, and 
by-places. His sketch book was accordingly crowded 
with cottages, and landscapes, and obscure ruins ; but 
he had neglected to paint St. Peter's, or the Coli- 
semn; the cascade of Terni,^ or the bay of Naples; 
and had not a single glacier or volcano in his whole 
collection. 

^ Terni is a town in Italy about fifty miles from Rome. The 
cascade is on a branch of the river Nera. The water falls by 
three leaps about 750 feet, making one of the most beautiful and 
romantic cataracts in the world. 



THE VOYAGE. 



THE VOYAGE.^ 

Ships, ships, I will descrie you 

Amidst the main, 
I will come and try you, 
What you are protecting, 
And projecting, 
What 's your end and aim. 
One goes abroad for merchandise and trading, 
Another stays to keep his country from invading, 
A third is coming home with rich and wealthy lading. 
Halloo ! my f ancie, whither wilt thou go ? 

Old Poem. 

To an American visiting Europe, the long voyage 
he has to make is an excellent preparative. The 
temporary absence of worldly scenes and employ- 
ments produces a state of mind peculiarly fitted to 
receive new and vivid impressions. The vast space of 
waters that separates the hemispheres is like a blank 
page in existence. There is no gradual transition by 
which, as in Europe, the features and population of 
one country blend almost imperceptibly with those of 
another. From the moment you lose sight of the land 
you have left, all is vacancy, until you step on the 
opposite shore, and are launched at once into the 
bustle and novelties of another world. 

In travelling by land there is a continuity of scene, 
and a connected succession of persons and incidents, 
that carry on the story of life, and lessen the effect 
of absence and separation. We drag, it is true, "a 

^ Irving's first voyage to Europe was made in 1804 in a sail- 
ing vessel. He was at that time twenty-one years of age. He 
visited Europe a second time in 1815, going, as before, in a sail- 
ing vessel, for, although Fulton was successful with his steam- 
boat on the Hudson as early as 1807, the Atlantic was not crossed 
by steamer until 1838. The Sketch Book appeared in 1819 and 
1820 in seven successive numbers, the first of which contained 
The Voyage, 



6 WASHINGTON IRVING, 

lengthening chain " at each remove of our pilgrimage- 
but the chain is unbroken ; we can trace it back link 
by link ; and we feel that the last still grapples us to 
home. But a wide sea voyage severs us at once. It 
makes us conscious of being cast loose from the secure 
anchorage of settled life, and sent adrift upon a doubt- 
ful world. It interposes a gulf, not merely imaginary, 
but real, between us and our homes — a gulf subjeci 
to tempest, and fear, and uncertainty, rendering dis 
tance palpable and return precarious. 

Such, at least, was the case with myself. As I saw 
the last blue line of my native land fade away like a 
cloud in the horizon, it seemed as if I had closed one 
volume of the world and its concerns, and had time 
for meditation, before I opened another. That land, 
too, now vanishing from my view, which contained all 
most dear to me in life ; what vicissitudes might occur 
in it, what changes might take place in me, before I 
should visit it again! Who can tell, when he sets 
forth to wander, whither he may be driven by the 
uncertain currents of existence; or when he may 
return ; or whether it may ever be his lot to revisit the 
scenes of his childhood? 

i said that at sea all is vacancy; I should correct 
the expression. To one given to day-dreaming, and 
fond of losing himself in reveries, a sea voyage is full 
of subjects for meditation; but then they are the won- 
ders of the deep and of the air, and rather tend to 
abstract the mind from worldly themes. I delighted 
to loll over the quarter-railing or climb to the main- 
top, of a calm day, and muse for hours together on 
the tranquil bosom of a summer's sea; to gaze upon 
the piles of golden clouds just peering above the hori- 
zon, fancy them some fairy realms, and people thenj 



THE VOYAGE, 7 

i?nth a creation of my owii ; to watcli the gentle undu- 
lating billows, rolling their silver volumes, as if to 
die away on those happy shores. 

There was a delicious sensation of mingled security 
and awe with which I looked down, from my giddy 
height, on the monsters of the deep at their uncouth 
gambols : shoals of porpoises tumbling about the bow 
of the ship; the grampus, slowly heaving his huge 
form above the surface ; or the ravenous shark, dart- 
ing, like a spectre, through the blue waters. My im- 
agination would conjure up all that I had heard or 
read of the watery world beneath me: of the finny 
herds that roam its fathomless valleys ; of the shape- 
less monsters that lurk among the very foundations 
of the earth, and of those wild phantasms that swell 
xhe tales of fishermen and sailors. 

Sometimes a distant sail, gliding along the edge of 
the ocean, would be another theme of idle speculation. 
How interesting this fragment of a world, hastening 
to rejoin the great mass of existence! What a glori- 
ous monument of human invention; which has in a 
manner triumphed over wind and wave ; has brought 
the ends of the world into communion ; has established 
an interchange of blessings, pouring into the sterile 
regions of the north all the luxuries of the south ; has 
diffused the light of knowledge and the charities of 
cultivated life; and has thus bound together those 
scattered portions of the human race, between which 
nature seemed to have thrown an insurmountable bar- 
rier. 

We one day descried some shapeless object drifting 
at a distance. At sea, everything that breaks the 
monotony of the surrounding expanse attracts atten- 
tion. It proved to be the mast of a ship that must 



8 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

have been completely wrecked; for there were tlie 
remains of handkerchiefs, by which some of the crew 
had fastened themselves to this spar, to prevent their 
being washed off by the waves. There was no trace 
by which the name of the ship could be ascertained. 
The wreck had evidently drifted about many months '5 
clusters of shell-fish had fastened about it, and long 
sea-weeds flaunted at its sides. But where, thought 
I, is the crew ? Their struggle has long been over — 
they have gone down amidst the roar of the tempest 
— their bones lie whitening among the caverns of the 
deep. Silence, oblivion, like the waves, have closed 
over them, and no one can tell the story of their end. 
W^hat sighs have been wafted after that ship ! what 
prayers offered up at the deserted fireside of home! 
How often has the mistress, the wife, the mother, 
pored over the daily news, to catch some casual intel- 
ligence of this rover of the deep ! How has expecta- 
tion darkened into anxiety — anxiety into dread-- 
and dread into despair ! Alas ! not one memento may 
ever return for love to cherish. All that shall ever 
be known is that she sailed from her port, "and was 
never heard of more ! '* 

The sight of this wreck, as usual, gave rise to 
many dismal anecdotes. This was particularly the 
case in the evening, when the weather, which had 
hitherto been fair, began to look wild and threatening, 
and gave indications of one of those sudden storms 
which will sometimes break in upon the serenity of a 
summer voyage. As we sat round the dull light of 
a lamp in the cabin, that made the gloom more ghastly, 
every one had his tale of shipwreck and disaster. 1 
was particularly struck with a short one related by 
the captain. 



THE VOYAGE. 9 

**As I was once sailing,'* said he, "in a fine stout 
ship across the banks of Newfoundland, one of those 
heavy fogs which prevail in those parts rendered it 
impossible for us to see far ahead, even in the day- 
time ; but at night the weather was so thick that we 
could not distinguish anj?- object at twice the length of 
the ship. I kept lights at the mast-head, and a con- 
stant watch forward to look out for fishing smacks, 
which are accustomed to lie at anchor on the banks. 
The wind was blowing a smacking breeze, and we 
were going at a great rate through the water. Sud- 
denly the watch gave the alarm of ' a sail ahead ! ' — 
it was scarcely uttered before we were upon her. She 
was a small schooner, at anchor, with her broadside 
toward us. The crew were all asleep, and had 
neglected to hoist a light. \Ye struck her just amid- 
ships. The force, the si'^e, the weight of our vessel, 
bore her down below the vaves ; we passed over her 
and were hurried on our course. As the crashing 
wreck was sinking beneath us, I had a glimpse of two 
or three half -naked wretches rushing from her cabin ; 
they just started from their beds to be swallowed 
shrieking by the waves. I heard their drowning cry 
mingling with the wind. The blast that bore it to 
our ears swept us out of all farther hearing. I r hall 
never forget that cry ! It was some time before we 
could put the ship about, she was under such headway. 
We returned, as nearly as we could guess, to the place 
where the smack had anchored. We cruised about 
for several hours in the dense fog. We fired signal- 
guns, and listened if we might hear the halloo of anj 
survivors ; but all was silent — we never saw or heard 
anything of them more." 

I confess these stories, for a time, put an end to all 



10 WASHINGTON IRVING, 

my fine fancies. The storm increased with the night. 
The sea was lashed into tremendous confusion. There 
was a fearful, sullen sound of rushing waves and 
broken surges. Deej) called unto deep. At times 
the black volume of clouds overhead seemed rent 
asunder by flashes of lightning which quivered along 
the foaming billows, and made the succeeding darkness 
doubly terrible. The thunders bellowed over the wild 
waste of waters, and were echoed and prolonged by 
the mountain waves. As I saw the ship staggering 
and plunging among these roaring caverns, it seemed 
miraculous that she regained her balance, or preserved 
her buoyancy. Her yards would dip into the water ; 
her bow was almost buried beneath the waves. Some- 
times an impending surge appeared ready to over- 
whelm her, and nothing but a dexterous movement of 
the helm preserved her from the shock. 

When I retired to my cabin, the awful scene still 
followed me. The whistling of the wind through the 
rigging sounded like funereal wailings. The creaking 
of the masts, the straining and groaning of bulk -heads, 
as the ship labored in the weltering sea, were frightful. 
As I heard the waves rushing along the sides of the 
ship, and roaring in my very ear, it seemed as if Death 
were raging round this floating prison, seeking for his 
prey: the mere starting of a nail, the yawning of a 
seam, might give him entrance. 

A fine day, however, with a tranquil sea and favor= 
ing breeze, soon put all these dismal reflections to 
flight. It is impossible to resist the gladdening in- 
fluence of fine weather and fair wind at sea. When 
the ship is decked out in all her canvas, every sail 
swelled, and careering gayly over the curling waves, 
how lofty, how gallant she appears — how she seems 



THE VOYAGE. 11 

to lord it over the deep ! I might fill a volume with 
the reveries of a sea voyage, for with me it is almost 
d continual reverie — but it is time to get to shore. 

It was a fine sunny morning when the thrilling cry 
of "land! "was given from the mast-head. None but 
those who have experienced it can form an idea of the 
delicious throng of sensations which rush into ai 
American's bosom when he first comes in sisht ol 
Europe. There is a volume of associations with the 
very name. It is the land of promise, teeming with 
everything of which his childhood has heard, or on 
which his studious years have pondered. 

From that time until the moment of arrival, it 
was all feverish excitement. The ships of war, that 
prowled like guardian giants along the coast; the 
headlands of Ireland, stretching out into the channel ; 
the Welsh mountains, towering into the clouds; all 
were objects of intense interest. As we sailed up the 
Mersey, I reconnoitred the shores with a telescope. 
My eye dwelt with delight on neat cottages, with their 
trim shrubberies and green grassplots. I saw the 
mouldering ruin of an abbey overrun with ivy, and 
the taper spire of a village church rising from the brow 
of a neighboring hill — all were characteristic of Eng- 
land. 

The tide and wind were so favorable that the ship 
was enabled to come at once to the pier. It wa? 
thronged with people : some, idle lookers-on ; others, 
eager expectants of friends or relatives. I could dis- 
tinguish the merchant to whom the ship was consigned. 
I knew him by his calculating brow and restless air. 
3is hands were thrust into his pockets ; he was whis- 
tling thoughtfully, and walking to and fro, a smaU 
space having been accorded him by the crowd, in 



i2 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

ieference to his temporary importance. There were 
repeated cheerings and sahitations interchanged be- 
tween the shore and the ship, as friends happened to 
t'ecognize each other. I particularly noticed one 
young woman of hmnble dress, but interesting 
demeanor. She was leaning forward from among the 
crowd; her eye hurried over the ship as it neared the 
shore, to catch some wished-for countenance. She 
seemed disappointed and agitated; when I heard a 
faint voice call her name. It was from a poor sailor who 
had been ill all the voyage, and had excited the sym- 
pathy of every one on board. When the weather was 
fine, his messmates had spread a mattress for him on 
deck in the shade, but of late his illness had so 
increased that he had taken to his hammock, and only 
breathed a wish that he might see his wife before he 
died. He had been helped on deck as we came up the 
river, and was now leaning against the shrouds, with 
a countenance so wasted, so pale, so ghastly, that it 
was no wonder even the eye of affection did not recog- 
nize him. But at the sound of his voice, her eye darted 
on his features ; it read at once a whole volume of sor- 
row; she clasped her hands, uttered a faint shriek, 
and stood wringing them in silent agony. 

All now was hurry and bustle. The meetings of 
acquaintances — the greetings of friends — the con- 
sultations of men of business. I alone was solitary 
and idle. I had no friend to meet, no cheering to 
receive. I stepped upon the land of my forefathers 
— but felt that I was a stranger in the land. 



RURAL LIFE IN ENGLAND. 13 



RURAL LIFE IN ENGLAND.^ 

Oh ! friendly to the best pursuits of man, 
Friendly to thought, to virtue, and to peace, 
Domestic life in rural pleasure past I 

COWPEB. 

The stranger who would form a correct opinion of 
the English character must not confine his observa* 
tions to the metropolis. He must go forth into the 
country; he must sojourn in villages and harjJets; he 
must visit castles, villas, farmhouses, villages; he 
must wander through parks and gardens; along 
hedges and green lanes ; he must loiter about country 
churches ; attend wakes and fairs, and other rural fes- 
tivals; and cope with the people in all their condi- 
tions, and all their habits and humors. 

In some countries the large cities absorb the wealth 
and fashion of the nation; they are the only fixed 
abodes of elegant and intelligent society, and the 
country is inhabited almost entirely by boorish pea- 
santry. In England, on the contrary, the metropolis 
is a mere gathering-place, or general rendezvous, oi 
the polite classes, where they devote a small portion 
ot the year to a hurry of gayety and dissipation, and, 

1 Irving' s brief residence in England after his first voyage and 
his longer stay there after his second (see note en page 5) ad- 
mirably fitted him to sympathize with English country life. He 
visited Thomas Campbell, Thomas Moore, Sir Walter Scott, and 
other English celebrities, and was everywhere most hospitably 
received. Says Mr. Godwin, an English author, of Rural Life, 
" It is, I believe, all true ; and one wonders, while reading, that 
nobody ever said this before." Richard H. Dana in a critical 
notice says, " We come from reading Rural Life in England as 
much restored and cheerful as if we had been passing an hour or 
two in the very fields and woods themselves/' 



14 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

having indulged this kind of carnival, return again to 
flie apparently more congenial habits of rural life. 
The various orders of society are therefore diffused 
over the whole surface of the kingdom, and the most 
retired neighborhoods afford specimens of the different 
ranks. 

The English, in fact, are strongly gifted with the 
rural feeling. They possess a quick sensibility to the 
beauties of nature, and a keen relish for the pleasures 
and employments of the country. This passion seems 
inherent in them. Even the inhabitants of cities, 
born and brought up among brick walls and bustling 
streets, enter with facility into rural habits, and evince 
a tact for rural occupation. The merchant has his 
snug retreat in the vicinity of the metropolis, where he 
often displays as much pride and zeal in the cultiva* 
tion of his flower-garden, and the maturing of his 
fruits, as he does in the conduct of his business, and 
the success of a commercial enterprise. Even those 
less fortunate individuals, who are doomed to pass 
their lives in the midst of din and traffic, contrive to 
have something that shall remind them of the green 
aspect of nature. In the most dark and dingy quar- 
ters of the city, the drawing-room window resembles 
frequently a bank of flowers; every spot capable of 
vegetation has its grassplot and flower-bed, and every 
square its mimic park, laid out with picturesque taste 
and gleaming with refreshing verdure. 

Those who see the Englishman only in town are apt 
to form an unfavorable opinion of his social character. 
He is either absorbed in business, or distracted by the 
thousand engagements that dissipate time, thought, 
and feeling, in this huge metropolis. He has, there- 
fore, too commonly, a look of Imrry and abstraction. 



RURAL LIFE IN ENGLAND. 15 

WTierever he happens to be, he is on the point of 
going somewhere else ; at the moment he is talking on 
one subject, his mind is wandering to another; and 
^A^hile paying a friendly visit, he is calculating how he 
shall economize time so as to pay the other visits 
allotted in the morning. An immense metropolis, 
like London, is calculated to make men selfish and 
uninteresting. In their casual and transient meet- 
ings, they can but deal briefly in commoni^laces. 
They present but the cold superficies of character — 
its rich and genial qualities have no time to be 
warmed into a flow. 

It is in the country that the Englishman gives scope 
to his natural feelings. He breaks loose gladly from 
the cold formalities and negative civilities of town; 
throws off his habits of shy reserve, and becomes joy- 
ous and free-hearted. He manages to collect round 
him all the conveniences and elegancies of polite life, 
and to banish its restraints. His country seat abounds 
with every requisite, either for studious retirement, 
tasteful gratification, or rural exercise. Books, paint- 
ings, music, horses, dogs, and sporting implements of 
all kinds, are at hand. He puts no constraint, either 
upon his guests or himself, but, in the true spirit of 
hospitality, provides the means of enjoyment, and 
leaves every one to partake according to his inclina- 
tion. 

The taste of the English in the cultivation of land., 
and in what is called landscape gardening, is unri- 
valled. They have studied Nature intently, and dis- 
covered an exquisite sense of her beautiful forms and 
harmonious combinations. Those charms which, in 
other countries, she lavishes in wild solitudes, are here 
assembled round the haunts of domestic life. They 



16 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

seem to have caught her coy and furtive graces, and 
spread them, like witchery, about their rural abodes. 

Nothing can be more imposing than the magnifi- 
cence of English park scenery. Vast lawns that ex- 
tend like sheets of vivid green, with here and there 
slumps of gigantic trees, heaping up rich piles of to- 
liage. The solemn pomp of groves and woodlaad 
glades, with the deer trooping in silent herds across 
them ; the hare, bounding away to the covert ; or the 
pheasant, suddenly bursting upon the wing. The 
brook, taught to wind in natural meanderings, or 
expand into a glassy lake; the sequestered pool, re- 
flecting the quivering trees, with the yellow leaf sleep- 
ing on its bosom, and the trout roaming fearlessly 
about its limpid waters ; while some rustic temple, or 
sylvan statue, grown green and dank with age, gives 
an air of classic sanctity to the seclusion, 

These are but a few of the features of park scenery 5 
but what most delights me is the creative talent with 
which the English decorate the unostentatious abodes 
of middle life. The rudest habitation, the most 
unpromising and scanty portion of land, in the hands 
of an Englishman of taste, becomes a little paradise. 
With a nicely discriminating eye, he seizes at once 
upon its capabilities, and pictures in his mind the fu- 
ture landscape. The sterile spot grows into loveliness 
under his hand; and yet the operations of art which 
produce the effect are scarcely to be perceived. The 
cherishing and training of some trees; the cautious 
pruning of others ; the nice distribution of flowers and 
plants of tender and graceful foliage ; the introduction 
of a green slope of velvet turf ; the partial opening to 
a peep of blue distance, or silver gleam of water, — 
all these are managed with a delicate tact, a pervading 



RURAL LIFE IN ENGLAND. 17 

yet quiet assiduity, like the magic toucliings with 
which a painter finishes up a favorite picture. 

The residence of people of fortune and refinement 
in the country has diffused a degree of taste and ele- 
gance in rural economy, that descends to the lowest 
class. The very laborer, with his thatched cottage 
and narrow slip of ground, attends to their embellish 
ment. The trim hedge, the grassplot before the door, 
the little flower-bed bordered with snug box, the 
woodbine trained up against the wall and hanging its 
blossoms about the lattice ; the pot of flowers in the 
window; the holly, providently planted about the 
house, to cheat winter of its dreariness, and to throw 
in a semblance of green summer to cheer the fireside, 
— all these bespeak the influence of taste, flowing 
down from high sources, and pervading the lowest 
levels of the public mind. If ever Love, as poets sing, 
delights to visit a cottage, it must be the cottage of an 
English peasant. 

The fondness for rural life among the higher classes 
of the English has had a great and salutary effect 
upon the national character. I do not know a finer 
race of men than the English gentlemen. Instead of 
the softness and effeminacy which characterize the 
men of rank in most countries, they exhibit a union 
of elegance and strength, a robustness of frame and 
freshness of complexion, which I am inclined to attri- 
bute to their living so much in the open air, and pur 
suing so eagerly the invigorating recreations of tht 
country. These hardy exercises produce also a health* 
ful tone of mind and spirits, and a manliness and 
simplicity of manners, which even the follies and dis- 
sipations of the town cannot easily pervert, and can 
never entirely destroy. In the country, too, the diffe^^ 



18 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

ent orders of society seem to approach more freely, to 
be more disposed to blend and operate favorably upon 
each other. The distinctions between them do not 
appear to be so marked and impassable as in the cities. 
The manner in which property has been distributed 
into small estates and farms has established a regu- 
lar gradation from the noblemen, through the classes 
of gentry, small landed proprietors, and substantial 
farmers, down to the laboring peasantry; and while it 
has thus banded the extremes of society together, has 
infused into each intermediate rank a spirit of inde«= 
pendence. This, it must be confessed, is not so uni- 
versally the case at present as it was formerly; the 
larger estates having, in late years of distress, ab- 
sorbed the smaller, and in some parts of the country 
almost annihilated the sturdy race of small farmers. 
These, however, I believe are but casual breaks in the 
general system I have mentioned. 

In rural occupation there is nothing mean and debas- 
ing. It leads a man forth among scenes of natural 
grandeur and beauty; it leaves him to the workings of 
his own mind, operated upon by the purest and most 
elevating of external influences. Such a man may be 
simple and rough, but he cannot be vulgar. The man 
of refinement, therefore, finds nothing revolting in 
an intercourse with the lower orders in rural life, as 
he does when he casually mingles with the lower 
orders of cities. He lays aside his distance and reserve, 
and is glad to waive the distinctions of rank and to 
enter into the honest, heartfelt enjoyments of com- 
mon life. Indeed the very amusements of the country 
bring men more and more together ; and the sound of 
boimd and horn blend all feelings into harmony. 1 
believe this is one great reason why the nobility and 



RURAL LIFE IN ENGLAND, 19 

gentry are more popular among the inferior orders in 
England than they are in any other country ; and why 
the latter have endured so many excessive pressures 
and extremities, without repining more generally at 
the unequal distribution of fortune and privilege. 

To this mingling of cultivated and rustic society 
may also be attributed the rural feeling that runs 
through British literature ; the frequent use of illustra- 
tions from rural life ; those incomparable descriptions 
of Nature that aboimd in the British poets, that have 
continued down from "The Flower and the Leaf" of 
Chaucer,^ and have brought into our closets all the 
freshness and fragrance of the dewy landscape. The 
pastoral writers of other countries appear as if they 
had paid Nature an occasional visit, and become 
acquainted with her general charms ; but the British 
poets have lived and revelled with her — they have 
wooed her in her most secret haunts — they have 
watched her minutest caprices. A spray could not 
tremble in the breeze — a leaf could not rustle to the 
ground — a diamond drop could not patter in the 
stream — a fragrance could not exhale from the hum- 
ble violet, nor a daisy unfold its crimson tints to the 
morning, but it has been noticed by these impas- 
sioned and delicate observers, and wrought up intc 
some beautiful morality. 

The effect of this devotion of elegant minds to rura' 
occupations has been wonderful on the face of th<? 
country. A great part of the island is rather leveL 

^ The Dictionary of National Biography, edited by Leslie Ste- 
phen, says that The Flower and the Leaf is one of many pieces 
that used to pass current as Chaucer's, but are undoubtedly spu- 
rious. Internal evidence shows that this poem was written later 
than Chaucer's time, and by a lady. 



80 WASHINGTOJS IRVING. 

and would be monotonous, were it not for the cliarnia 
of culture ; but it is studded and gemmed, as it were, 
with castles and palaces, and embroidered with parks 
and gardens. It does not abound in grand and sub- 
lime prospects, but rather in little home scenes of rural 
repose and sheltered quiet. Every antique farm* 
house and moss-grown cottage is a picture ; and as the 
roads are continually winding, and the view is shut in 
by groves and hedges, the eye is delighted by a contin- 
ual succession of small landscapes of captivating love- 
liness. 

The great charm, however, of English scenery is 
the moral feeling that seems to pervade it. It is asso- 
ciated in the mind with ideas of order, of quiet, of 
sober well-established principles, of hoary usage and 
reverend custom. Everything seems to be the growth 
of ages of regular and peaceful existence. The old 
church, of remote architecture, with its low massive 
portal; its gothic tower; its windows, rich with tra- 
cery and painted glass in scrupulous preservation ; its 
stately monuments of warriors and worthies of thf 
olden time, ancestors of the present lords of the soil^ 
its tombstones, recording successive generations ol 
sturdy yeomanry, whose progeny still plough the same 
fields, and kneel at the same altar; the parsonage, 
a quaint irregular pile, partly antiquated, but re- 
paired and altered in the tastes of various ages and 
Dccupants; the stile and footpath leading from the 
church-yard, across pleasant fields, and along shady 
hedge-rows, according to an immemorial right of way ; 
the neighboring village, with its venerable cottages, its 
public green, sheltered by trees, under which the fore- 
fathers of the present race have sported; the antique 
family mansion, standing apart in some little rural 



RURAL LIFE IN ENGLAND- 21 

domain, but looking down with a protecting air on the 
surrounding scene — all these common features of 
English landscape evince a calm and settled security, 
an hereditary transmission of homebred virtues and 
local attachments, that speak deeply and touchingly 
lor the moral character of the nation. 

It is a pleasing sight, of a Sunday morning, when 
the bell is sending its sober melody across the quiet 
fields, to behold the peasantry in their best finery, 
with ruddy faces, and modest cheerfulness, thronging 
tranquilly along the green lanes to church; but it is 
still more pleasing to see them in the evenings, gath- 
ering about their cottage doors, and appearing to 
3xult in the humble comforts and embellishments 
which their own hands have spread around them. 

It is this sweet home feeling, this settled repose of 
affection in the domestic scene, that is, after all, the 
parent of the steadiest virtues and purest enjoyments; 
and I cannot close these desultory remarks better, 
than by quoting the words of a modern English poet,^ 
who has depicted it with remarkable felicity : — 

Through each gradation, from the castled hall, 
The city dome, the villa crowned with shade, 
But chief from modest mansions numberless. 
In town or hamlet, shelt'ring middle life, 
Down to the cottaged vale, and straw-roof 'd shed, 
This western isle hath long been famed for scenes 
Where bliss domestic finds a dwelling-place : 
Domestic bliss, that like a harmless dove 
(Honor and sweet endearment keeping guard) 



^ Rev. Rann Kennedy, a clergyman of Birmingham, and a 
friend of Irving's. The passage is from Kennedy's poem on the 
Princess Charlotte, the only daughter of George IV. She died 
in 1817, at the age of twenty-one. 



22 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

Can centre in a little quiet nest 

All that desire would tiy for through the earth 

That can, the world eluding, be itself 

A world enjoyed ; that wants no witnesses 

But its own sharers, and approving Heaven ; 

That, like a flower deep hid in rocky cleft, 

Smiles, though 't is looking only at the skjc 



THE COUNTRY CHURCH. 

A gentleman I 
What, 0* the woolpack ? or the sugar-chest ? 
Or lists of velvet ? which is 't, pound, or yard, 
You vend your gentry by ? 

Beggab^s BnsH.i 

There are few places more favorable to the study 
of character than an English country church. I was 
once passing a few weeks at the seat of a friend, who 
resided in the vicinity of one, the appearance of which 
particularly struck my fancy. It was one of those 
rich morsels of quaint antiquity which give such a 
peculiar charm to English landscape. It stood in the 
midst of a country filled with ancient families, and 
contained, within its cold and silent aisles, the con- 
gregated dust of many noble generations. The inte- 
rior walls were encrusted with monuments of every age 
and style. The light streamed through windows 
dimmed with armorial bearings, richly emblazoned in 
stained glass. In various parts of the church were 
tombs of knights, and high-born dames, of gorgeous 
workmanship, with their effigies in colored marble. 

1 A comedy by John Fletcher (1579-1625), dramatist. It de^ 
plots the woodland life of beggars. 



THE COUNTRY CHURCH. 23 

On every side, the eye was struck with some instance 
of aspiring mortality ; some haughty memorial which 
human pride had erected over its kindred dust, in this 
temple of the most humble of all religions. 

The congregation was composed of the neighboring 
people of rank, who sat in pews sumptuously lined 
and cushioned, furnished with richly-gilded prayer- 
books, and decorated with their arms upon the pew 
doors ; of the villagers and peasantry, who filled the 
back seats and a small gallery beside the organ ; and 
of the poor of the parish, who were ranged on benches 
in the aisles. 

The service was performed by a snuffling, well-fed 
vicar, who had a snug dwelling near the church. He 
was a privileged guest at all the tables of the neigh- 
borhood, and had been the keenest fox-hunter in the 
country, until age and good living had disabled him 
from doing anything more than ride to see the hounds 
throw off, and make one at the hunting dinner. 

Under the ministry of such a pastor, I found it im- 
possible to get into the train of thought suitable to the 
time and place; so having, like many other feeble 
Christians, compromised with my conscience, by lay- 
ing the sin of my own delinquency at another person's 
threshold, I occupied myself by making observation? 
on my neighbors. 

I was as yet a stranger in England, and curious to 
notice the manners of its fashionable classes. I found 
as usual, that there was the least pretension where 
there was the most acknowledged title to respect. I 
was particularly struck, for instance, with the family 
of a nobleman of high rank, consisting of several sons 
and daughters. Nothing could be more simple and un- 
assuming than their appear anee. They generally came 



24 WASHINGTON IRVING, 

to church in the plainest equipage and often on foot. 
The young ladies would stop and converse in the kind- 
est manner with the peasantry, caress the children, 
and listen to the stories of the humble cottagers. 
Their countenances were open and beautifully fair, 
with an expression of high refinement, but, at the 
same time, a frank cheerfulness, and engaging affa- 
bility. Their brothers were tall, and elegantly 
formed. They were dressed fashionably, but simply; 
with strict neatness and propriety, but without any 
mannerism or foppishness. Their whole demeanor 
was easy and natural, with that lofty grace, and noble 
frankness, which bespeak free-born souls that have 
never been checked in their growth by feelings of 
in-eriority. There is a healthful hardiness about 
real dignity, that never dreads contact and commu- 
nion with others, however humble. It is only spurious 
pride that is morbid and sensitive, and shrinks from 
every touch. I was pleased to see the manner in 
which they would converse with the peasantry about 
those rural concerns and field sports, in which the 
gentlemen of this country so much delight. In these 
conversations there was neither haughtiness on the 
one part, nor servility on the other; and you were 
only reminded of the difference of rank by the habit- 
ual respect of the peasant. 

In contrast to these was the family of a wealthy 
citizen, who had amassed a vast fortune, and, having 
purchased the estate and mansion of a ruined noble- 
man in the neighborhood, was endeavoring to assume 
all the style and dignity of an hereditary lord of the 
3oil. The family always came to church en prince.^ 
They were rolled majestically along in a carriage 



THE COUNTRY CHURCH. 25 

emblazoned with arms. The crest glittered in silver 
radiance from every part of the harness where a crest 
could possibly be placed. A fat coachman in a three- 
cornered hat, richly laced, and a flaxen wig, curling 
close round his rosy face, was seated on the box, with 
a sleek Danish dog beside him. Two footmen in gor- 
geous liveries, with huge bouquets, and gold-headed 
canes, lolled behind. The carriage rose and sunk on 
its long springs with peculiar stateliness of motion. 
The very horses champed their bits, arched their 
necks, and glanced their eyes more proudly than 
common horses ; either because they had caught a 
little of the family feeling, or were reined up more 
tightly than ordinary. 

I could not but admire the style with which this 
splendid pageant was brought up to the gate of the 
church-yard. There was a vast effect produced at the 
turning of an angle of the wall, — a great smacking 
of the whip, straining and scrambling of horses, glis- 
tening of harness, and flashing of wheels through 
gravel. This was the moment of triumph and vain- 
glory to the coachman. The horses were urged and 
checked until they were fretted into a foam. They 
threw out their feet in a prancing trot, dashing about 
pebbles at every step. The crowd of villagers saun- 
tering quietly to church, opened precipitately to the 
right and left, gaping in vacant admiration. On 
reaching the gate, the horses were pulled up with a 
suddenness that produced an immediate stop, and 
almost threw them on their haunches. 

There was an extraordinary hurry of the footmen 
to alight, pull down the steps, and prepare everything 
for the descent on earth of this august family. The 
old citizen first emerged his round red face from out 



26 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

the door, looking about him with the pompous air of 
a man accustomed to rule on 'Change, and shake the 
stock-market with a nod. His consort, a fine, fleshy, 
comfortable dame, followed him. There seemed, I 
must confess, but little pride in her composition. She 
was the picture of broad, honest, vulgar enjoyment. 
The world went well with her ; and she liked the world. 
She had fine clothes, a fine house, a fine carriage, fine 
children, everything was fuie about her: it was no- 
thing but driving about, and visiting and feasting. 
Life was to her a perpetual revel; it was one long 
Lord Mayor's day. 

Two daughters succeeded to this goodly couple. 
They certainly were handsome, but had a supercilious 
air that chilled admiration, and disposed the spectator 
to be critical. They were ultra-fashionable in dress, 
and though no one could deny the richness of their 
decorations, yet their appropriateness might be ques- 
tioned amidst the simplicity of a country church. 
They descended loftily from the carriage, and moved 
up the line of peasantry with a step that seemed dainty 
of the soil it trod on. They cast an excursive glance 
around, that passed coldly over the burly faces of the 
peasantry, until they met the eyes of the nobleman's 
family, when their countenances immediately bright- 
ened into smiles, and they made the most profound 
and elegant curtseys, which were returned in a man 
uer that showed they were but slight acquaintances. 

I must not forget the two sons of this aspiring citi- 
zen, who came to church in a dashing curricle, with 
Dutriders. They were arrayed in the extremity of 
the mode, with all that pedantry of dress which marks 
the man of questionable pretensions to style. They 
kept entirely by themselves, eyeing every one askance 



THE COUNTRY CHURCH, 27 

fcliat came near them, as if measuring his claims to 
respectability; yet they were without conversation, 
except the exchange of an occasional cant phrase. 
They even moved artificially ; for their bodies, in com- 
pliance with the caprice of the day, had been disci 
plined into the absence of all ease and freedom. Art 
had done everything to accomplish them as men of 
fashion, but nature had denied them the nameless 
grace. They were vulgarly shaped, like men formed' 
for the common purposes of life, and had that air of 
supercilious assumption which is never seen in the 
true gentleman. 

I have been rather minute in drawing the pictures 
of these two families, because I considered them spe- 
cimens of what is often to be met with in this coun- 
try — the unpretending great, and the arrogant little. 
I have no respect for titled rank, unless it be accom- 
panied with true nobility of soul ; but I have remarked, 
in all countries where artificial distinctions exist, that 
the very highest classes are always the most courteous 
and unassuming. Those who are well assured of 
their own standing are least apt to trespass on that of 
others ; whereas, nothing is so offensive as the aspir- 
ings of vulgarity, which thinks to elevate itself by 
humiliating its neighbor. 

As I have brought these families into contrast, I 
must notice their behavior in church. That of the 
nobleman's family was quiet, serious, and attentive. 
Not that they appeared to have any fervor of devotion, 
but rather a respect for sacred things, and sacred 
places, inseparable from good breeding. The others, 
on the contrary, were in a perpetual flutter and whis- 
per ; they betrayed a continual consciousness of finery, 
and the sorry ambition of being the wonders of a rural 
congregation- 



28 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

The old gentleman was the only one really attentive 
to the service. He took the whole burden of family 
devotion upon himself; standing bolt upright, and 
uttering the responses with a loud voice that might be 
heard all over the church. It was evident that he 
was one of these thorough church and king men, who 
connect the idea of devotion and loyalty ; who consider 
the Deity, somehow or other, of the government party, 
and religion ^*a very excellent sort of thing, that 
ought to be countenanced and kept up." 

When he joined so loudly in the service, it seemed 
more by way of example to the lower orders, to show 
them that, though so great and wealthy, he was not 
above being religious ; as I have seen a turtle-fed 
alderman swallow publicly a basin of charity soup, 
smacking his lips at every mouthful, and pronouncing 
it "excellent food for the poor." 

When the service was at an end, I was curious to 
witness the several exits of my groups. The young 
noblemen and their sisters, as the day was fine, pre- 
ferred strolling home across the fields, chatting with 
the country people as they went. The others departed 
as they came, in grand parade. Again were the equi- 
pages wheeled up to the gate. There was again the 
smacking of whips, the clattering of hoofs, and the 
glittering of harness. The horses started off almost 
at a bound ; the villagers again hurried to right and 
left; the wheels threw up a cloud of dust; and the 
aspiring family was wrapt out of sight in a whirl 
wind. 



THE ANGLER. 29 



THE ANGLER. 

rids day dame Nature seem*d in love» 

The lusty sap began to move, 

Fresh juice did stir th' embracing vines, 

And birds had drawn their valentines. 

The jealous trout that low did lie, 

Rose at a well-dissembled flie. 

There stood my friend, with patient skill, 

Attending of his trembling quill. 

Sm H. WoTTON.' 

It is said that many an unlucky urchin is induced 
to run away from his family, and betake himself to 
seafaring life, from reading the history of Kobinson 
Crusoe ; and I suspect that, in like manner, many of 
those worthy gentlemen, who are given to haunt the 
sides of pastoral streams with angle-rods in hand, may 
trace the origin of their passion to the seductive pages 
of honest Izaak Walton. ^ I recollect studying his 
"Complete Angler" several years since, in company 
with a knot of friends in America, and, moreover, 
that we were all completely bitten with the angling 
mania. It was early in the year ; but as soon as the 
weather was auspicious, and that the spring began to 
melt into the verge of summer, we took rod in hand 

1 Sir Henry Wotton (1568-1639) was an accomplished diplo- 
matist in the times of James I., and a gentleman of scholarly 
tastes and refined wit. 

^ Izaak Walton was born in 1593 and died in 1683. The Com" 
plete Angler was first published in 1653. Walton kept adding 
to its completeness for a quarter of a century, the thirteen chap- 
ters of the original edition having grown to twenty-one before he 
died. He " hooked a much bigger fish than he angled for," says 
the Encyclopcedia Britannica, " when he offered his quaint treatise 
to the public. There is hardly a name in our literature, even of 
the first rank, whose immortality is more secure." 



30 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

and sallied into the country, as stark mad as was ever 
Don Quixote ^ from reading books of chivalry. 

One of our party had equalled the Don in the fulness 
of his equipments, being attired cap-a-pie for the 
enterprise. He wore a broad-skirted fustian coat, 
perplexed with half a hundred pockets ; a pair of stont 
shoes, and leathern gaiters; a basket slung on one 
side for fish ; a patent rod ; a landing net, and a score 
of other inconveniences, only to be found in the true 
angler's armory. Thus harnessed for the field, he 
was as great a matter of stare and wonderment among 
the country folk, who had never seen a regular angler, 
as was the steel-clad hero of La Mancha among the 
goatherds of the Sierra Morena. 

Our first essay was along a mountain brook, among 
the highlands of the Hudson, — a most unfortunate 
place for the execution of those piscatorj^ tactics 
which had been invented along the velvet margins 
of quiet English rivulets. It was one of those wild 
streams that lavish, among our romantic solitudes, 
unheeded beauties, enough to fill the sketch-book of 
a hunter of the picturesque. Sometimes it would leap 
down rocky shelves, making small cascades, over which 
the trees threw their broad balancing sprays, and long 
nameless weeds hung in fringes from the impending 
banks, dripping with diamond drops. Sometimes it 
would brawl and fret along a ravine in the matted 
shade of a forest, filling it with murmurs ; and, af tei 

^ The hero of a Spanish satirical romance by Cervantes (1547- 
1616), who feels called upon to become a knight-errant, to defend 
the oppressed and to succor the injured. He looks upon wind- 
mills as giants, flocks of sheep as armies, inns as castles, and 
galley-slaves as gentlemen in distress. He lived in a district 
known as La Mancha, and the Sierra Morena, a mountain range 
m Spain, was the theatre of many of his exploits. 



THE ANGLER, V\ 

this termagant career, would steal forth into open day 
with the most placid demure face imaginable; as 1 
have seen some pestilent shrew of a housewife, aftei 
filling her home with uproar and ill-humor, come dim- 
pling out of doors, swimming, and curtseying, and 
smiling upon all the world. 

How smoothly would this vagrant brook glide, at 
such times, through some bosom of green meadow 
land, among the mountains ; where the quiet was only 
interrupted by the occasional tinkling of a bell from 
Dhe lazy cattle among the clover, or the sound of a 
wood-cutter's axe from the neighboring forest! 

For my part, I was always a bungler at all kinds of 
sport that required either patience or adroitness, and 
bad not angled above half an hour before I had com- 
pletely ''satisfied the sentiment," and convinced my* 
self of the truth of Izaak Walton's opinion, that 
angling is something like poetry — a man must be born 
to it. I hooked myself instead of the fish ; tangled my 
line in every tree; lost my bait; broke my rod; until 
I gave up the attempt in despair, and passed the day 
under the trees, reading old Izaak; satisfied that it 
was his fascinating vein of honest simplicity and rural 
feeling that had bewitched me, and not the passion for 
angling. My companions, however, were more per- 
severing in their delusion. I have them at this mo- 
ment before my eyes, stealing along the border of the 
brook, where it lay open to the day, or was merely 
fringed by shrubs and bushes. I see the bittern ris- 
ing with hollow scream as they break in upon his 
rarely-invaded haunt; the kingfisher watching them 
suspiciously from his dry tree that overhangs the deep 
black mill-pond, in the gorge of the hills ; the tortoise 
letting himself slip sideways from off the stone or log 



82 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

on which he is sunning himself ; and the panic-strucl 
frog plumping in headlong as they approach, and 
spreading an alarm throughout the watery w^orld 
around. 

I recollect also that, after toiling and watching and 
creeping about for the greater part of a day, with 
scarcely any success, in spite of all our admirable 
apparatus, a lubberly country urchin came down from 
the hills, with a rod made from a branch of a tree, a 
few yards of twine, and, as heaven shall help me! 
I believe a crooked pin for a hook, baited with a vile 
earthworm, — and in half an hour caught more fish 
than we had nibbles throughout the day ! 

But above all, I recollect the "good, honest, whole, 
some, hungry " repast, which we made under a beech- 
tree just by a spring of pure sweet water that stole out 
of the side of a hill ; and how, when it was over, one 
of the party read old Izaak Walton's scene with the 
milk-maid, while I lay on the grass and built castles 
in a bright pile of clouds, until I fell asleep. All this 
may appear like mere egotism ; yet I cannot refrain 
from uttering these recollections, which are passing 
like a strain of music over my mind, and have been 
called up by an agreeable scene which I witnessec? 
not long since. 

In a morning's stroll along the banks of the Alun 
ft beautiful little stream which flows down from the 
Welsh hills and throws itself into the Dee, my atten- 
tion was attracted to a group seated on the margin. 
On approaching, I found it to consist of a veteran 
angler and two rustic disciples. The former was an 
old fellow with a wooden leg, with clothes very much 
but very carefully patched, betokening poverty, hon- 
estly come by, and decently maintained. His face 



THE ANGLER. 38 

oore the marks of former storms, but present fair 
weather; its furrows had been worn into an habitual 
smile; his iron-gray locks hung about his ears, and 
he had altogether the good-humored air of a constitu- 
tional philosopher who was disposed to take the world 
as it went. One of his companions was a ragged 
wight, with the skulking look of an arrant poacher5 
and I '11 warrant could find his way to any gentle^ 
man's fish-pond in the neighborhood in the darkest 
night. The other was a tall, awkward, country lad, 
with a lounging gait, and apparently somewhat of a 
rustic beau. The old man was busy in examining the 
maw of a trout which he had just killed, to discover 
by its contents what insects were seasonable for bait; 
and was lecturing on the subject to his companions, 
who appeared to listen with infinite deference. I 
have a kind feeling towards all "brothers of the 
angle," ever since I read Izaak Walton. They are 
men, he affirms, of a "mild, sweet, and peaceable 
spirit; " and my esteem for them has been increased 
since I met with an old "Tretyse of fishing with the 
Angle," in which are set forth many of the maxims of 
their inoffensive fraternity. "Take good hede," say- 
eth this honest little tretyse, "that in going about 
your disportes ye open no man's gates but that ye 
shet them again. Also ye shall not use this forsayd 
crafti disport for no covetousness to the encreasing 
and sparing of your money only, but principally for 
your solace, and to cause the helth of your body and 
specyally of your soule."^ 

^ From this same treatise, it would appear that angling is a 
more industrious and devout employment than it is generally 
considered. *' For when ye purpose to go on your disportes in 
fiflhynge, ye will not desyre greatlye many persons with yoiu 



84 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

I thought that I could perceive in the veteran angiei 
before me an exemplification of what I had read ; and 
there was a cheerful contentedness in his looks, that 
quite drew me towards him. I could not but remark 
the gallant manner in which he stumped from one 
part of the brook to another; waving his rod in the 
air, to keep the line from dragging on the ground 
or catching among the bushes ; and the adroitness with 
which he would throw his fly to any particular place ; 
sometimes skimming it lightly along a little rapid; 
sometimes casting it into one of those dark holes 
made by a twisted root or overhanging bank, in which 
the large trout are apt to lurk. In the meanwhile he 
was giving instructions to his two disciples ; showing 
them the manner in which they should handle their 
rods, fix their flies, and play them along the surface 
of the stream. The scene brought to my mind the 
instructions of the sage Piscator to his scholar. The 
country around was of that pastoral kind which Wal- 
ton is fond of describing. It was a part of the great 
plain of Cheshire, close by the beautiful vale of Gess- 
ford, and just where the inferior Welsh hills begin to 
swell up from among fresh-smelling meadows. The 
day, too, like that recorded in his work, was mild and 
simshiny, with now and then a soft-dropping showerc 
that sowed the whole earth with diamonds. 

I soon fell into conversation with the old angler, 
and was so much entertained that, under pretext of 
receiving instructions in his art, I kept company with 

which might let you of your game. And that ye may serve 
God devoutly in sayinge effectually your customable prayers. 
And thus doying, ye shall eschew and also avoyde many vices, 
as ydelnes which is principall cause to induce man to many othei 
Yiees, as it is right well known." — Y{, L 



THE ANGLER. 35 

faim almost the whole day ; wandering along the banks 
of the stream, and listening to his talk. He was very 
communicative, having all the easy garrulity of cheer- 
ful old age ; and I fancy was a little flattered by hav- 
ing an opportunity of displaying his piscatory lore ; for 
who does not like now and then to play the sage ? 

He had been much of a rambler in his day; and 
had passed some years of his youth in America, par- 
ticularly in Savannah, where he had entered into trade 
and had been ruined by the indiscretion of a partner. 
He had afterwards experienced many ups and downs 
in life, until he got into the navy, where his leg was 
carried away by a cannon-ball, at the battle of Cam- 
perdown.^ This was the only stroke of real good for- 
tune he had ever experienced, for it got him a pension, 
which, together with some small paternal property, 
brought him in a revenue of nearly forty pounds. On 
this he retired to his native village, where he lived 
quietly and independently, and devoted the remainder 
of his life to the ''noble art of angling." 

I found that he had read Izaak Walton attentively , 
and he seemed to have imbibed all his simple frank- 
ness and prevalent good-humor. Though he had beer 
sorely buffeted about the world, he was satisfied that 
the world, in itself, was good and beautiful. Though 
he had been as roughly used in different countries ag 
a poor sheep that is fleeced by every hedge and thicket, 
yet he spoke of every nation with candor and kind- 
ness, appearing to look only on the good side of things r 
and above all, he was almost the only man I had eves 

1 Camperdown is a village of Holland, twenty-seven miles 
northwest of Amsterdam, celebrated on account of the victory 
gained off its coast by the English Admiral Duncan over the 
^tch fleet under Admiral De Winter, October 11, 1797. 



86 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

met with, who had been an unfortunate adventurer in 
America, and had honesty and magnanimity enough 
to take the fault to his own door, and not to curse 
the country. 

The lad that was receiving his instructions, I learnt 
was the son and heir apparent of a fat old widow who 
kept the village inn, and of course a youth of some 
expectation, and much courted by the idle, gentleman- 
like personages of the place. In taking him under his 
care, therefore, the old man had probably an eye to a 
privileged corner in the tap-room, and an occasional 
cup of cheerful ale free of expense. 

There is certainly something in angling, if we could 
forget, which anglers are apt to do, the cruelties and 
tortures inflicted on worms and insects, that tends to 
produce a gentleness of spirit, and a pure serenity of 
mind. As the English are methodical even in their 
recreations, and are the most scientific of sportsmen, it 
has been reduced among them to perfect rule and sys- 
tem. Indeed, it is an amusement peculiarly adapted 
to the mild and highly cultivated scenery of England, 
where every roughness has been softened away from 
the landscape. It is delightful to saunter along those 
limpid streams which wander, like veins of silver, 
through the bosom of this beautiful country ; leading 
one through a diversity of small home scenery; some- 
times winding through ornamented grounds ; sometimes 
brimming along tln*ough rich pasturage, where th 
fresh green is mingled with sweet-smelling flowers, 
sometimes venturing in sight of villages and hamlets, 
and then running capriciously away into shady retire** 
ments. The sweetness and serenity of nature, and 
the quiet watchfulness of the sport, gradually bring 
On pleasant fits of musing; which are now and then 



THE ANGLER, 87 

agreeably interrupted by the song of a bird, the dis- 
tant whistle of the peasant, or perhaps the vagary of 
some fish, leaping out of the still water and skimming 
transiently about its glassy surface. "When I would 
beget content," says Izaak Walton, "and increase 
confidence in the power and wisdom and providence of 
A^lmighty God, I will walk the meadows by some 
gliding stream, and there contemplate the lilies that 
take no care, and those very many other little living 
creatures that are not only created but fed, (man 
knows not how) by the goodness of the God of na- 
ture, and therefore trust in him." 

I cannot forbear to give another quotation from one 
of those ancient champions of angling, which breathes 
the same innocent and happy spirit : 

Let me live harmlessly, and near the brink 

Of Trent or Avon have a dwelling-place, 
Where I may see my quill, or cork, down sink, 

With eager bite of pike, or bleak, or dace; 
And on the world and my Creator think : 

Whilst some men strive ill-gotten goods t* embrace? 
And others spend their time in base excess 

Of wine, or, worse, in war or wantonness. 
Let them that will, these pastimes still pursue, 

And on such pleasing fancies feed their fill ; 
So I the fields and meadows green may view. 

And daily by fresh rivers walk at will. 
Among the daisies and the violets blue. 

Red hyacinth and yellow daffodil.^ 

On parting with the old angler I inquired after his 
place of abode, and happening to be in the neighbor- 
hood of the village a few evenings afterwards, I had 
the curiosity to seek him out. I found him living in 
a small cottage, containing only one room, but a per* 

^ J. Davors. 



88 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

feet curiosity in its method and arrangement. It wssj 
on the skirts of the village, on a green bank, a little 
back from the road, with a small garden in front, 
stocked with kitchen herbs, and adorned with a few 
flowers. The whole front of the cottage was overrun 
with a honeysuckle. On the top was a ship for a 
weathercock. The interior was fitted up in a truly 
nautical style, his ideas of comfort and convenience 
having been acquired on the berth-deck of a man-of- 
war. A hammock was slung from the ceiling, which 
in the daytime was lashed up so as to take but little 
room. From the centre of the chamber himg a model 
of a ship, of his o^vn workmanship. Two or three 
chairs, a table, and a large sea-chest, formed the prin- 
cipal movables. About the waU were stuck up navaJ 
ballads, such as Admiral Hosier's Ghost, ^ All in the 
Downs, *^ and Tom Bowling,^ intermingled with pic- 
tures of sea-fights, among which the battle of Camper- 
down held a distinguished place. The mantel-piece 

1 This ballad, written by Kichard Glover in 1739, is based on 
an English expedition of twenty sail to block up the galleons of 
the Spanish West Indies, but with strict orders not to fight. Th^ 
men died of disease and the admiral of a broken heart. After 
Admiral Vernon's victory over the same foe, Admiral Hosier 
and three thousand men are represented as rising "all in dreary 
hammocks shrouded, which for winding-sheets they wore," and 
lamenting the cruel orders that forbade their attacking with 
twenty ships when Vernon succeeded with six. 

2 " All in the Downs the fleet was moored," — the first line of 
the ballad, by John Gay, popularly known as Black-eyed Susan, 
It was published in 1720. 

^ A naval character in Smollett's Roderick Random, in whose 

memory Charles Dibdin wrote one of his famous sea-songs b^ 

ginning thus: — 

Here a sheer hulk lies poor Tom Bowlings 
The darling of hia crew. 



THE ANGLER, 39 

<vas decorated with seashells ; over which hung a quad- 
rant, flanked by two wood-cuts of most bitter-looking 
naval commanders. His implements for angling were 
carefully disposed on nails and hooks about the room. 
On a shelf was arranged his library, containing a work 
on angling, much worn ; a Bible covered with canvas ; 
an odd volume or two of voyages ; a nautical ahnanac ; 
and a book of songs. 

His family consisted of a large black cat with one 
eye, and a parrot which he had caught and tamed, and 
educated himself, in the course of one of his voyages ; 
and which uttered a variety of sea phrases, with the 
hoarse rattling tone of a veteran boatswain. The 
establishment reminded me of that of the renowned 
Robinson Crusoe; it was kept in neat order, every- 
thing being "stowed away" with the regularity of a 
ship of war; and he informed me that he "scoured 
the deck every morning, and swept it between meals.'' 

I found him seated on a bench before the door, 
smoking his pipe in the soft evening sunshine. His 
cat was purring soberly on the threshold, and his 
parrot describing some strange evolutions in an iron 
ring that swung in the centre of his cage. He had 
been angling all day, and gave me a history of his 
sport with as much minuteness as a general would 
talk over a campaign ; being particularly animated in 
relating the manner in which he had taken a large 
trout, which had completely tasked all his skill and 
wariness, and which he had sent as a trophy to mine 
hostess of the inn. 

How comforting it is to see a cheerful and contented 
old age; and to behold a poor fellow, like this, after 
being tempest-tost through life, safely moored in a 
mug and quiet harbor in the evening of his days 



40 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

His happiness, however, sprung from within himseK, 
and was independent of external circumstances; for 
he had that inexhaustible good nature, which is the 
most precious gift of Heaven ; spreading itself like oil 
over the troubled sea of thought, and keeping the 
mind smooth and equable in the roughest weather. 

On inquiring further about him, I learnt that he 
was a universal favorite in the village, and the oracle of 
the tap -room; where he delighted the rustics with his 
songs, and, like Sinbad, astonished them with his sto- 
ries of strange lands, and shipwrecks, and sea-fights. 
He was much noticed too by gentlemen sportsmen 
of the neighborhood; had taught several of them the 
art of angling; and was a privileged visitor to their 
kitchens. The whole tenor of his life was quiet and 
inoffensive, being principally passed about the neigh- 
boring streams, when the weather and season were 
favorable ; and at other times he employed himself at 
home, preparing his fishing tackle for the next cam* 
paign, or manufacturing rods, nets, and flies, for his 
patrons and pupils among the gentry. 

He was a regular attendant at church on Sundays, 
though he generally fell asleep during the sermon. 
He had made it his particular request that when he 
died he should be buried in a green spot, which he 
could see from his seat in church, and which he had 
marked out ever since he was a boy, and had thought 
of when far from home on the raging sea, in dangei 
of being food for the fishes — it was the spot where his 
father and mother had been buried. 

I have done, for I fear that my reader is growing 
weary ; but I could not refrain from drawing the pic- 
ture of this worthy ''brother of the angle; " who has 
made me more than ever in love with the theory. 



THE STAGE-COACH. 41 

though I fear I shall never be adroit in the practice of 
his art; and I will conclude this rambling sketch, in 
the words of honest I^aak Walton, by craving the 
blessing of St. Peter's master upon my reader, "and 
upon all that are true lovers of virtue ; and dare trust 
m his providence; and be quiet; and go a angling." 



THE STAGE-COACH. 

Omne ben^ 

Sine poen§l 
Tempus est ludendi. 

Venit hora 

Absque morS 
Libros deponendi. 

Old Holiday School Song.* 

In the preceding paper ^ I have made some general 
observations on the Christmas festivities of England, 
and am tempted to illustrate them by some anecdotes 
of a Christmas passed in the country; in perusing 
which, I would most courteously invite my reader to 
lay aside the austerity of wisdom, and to put on that 
genuine holiday spirit which is tolerant of folly and 
anxious only for amusement. 

In the course of a December tour in Yorkshire, I 
rode for a long distance in one of the public coaches, 
on the day preceding Christmas. The coach was 
crowded, both inside and out, with passengers, who, 

^ The stanza signifies that it is well there is a time for mak- 
mg merry that brings no punishment, and that the hour is at 
hand for promptly putting aside one's books. 

2 Omitted from this book. The Sketch Book has four paperi? 
Dn Christmas, entitled Christmas, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day 
(see page 50), and Christmas Dinner respectively. 



42 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

by their talk, seemed principally bound to the maiv 
sions of relations or friends, to eat the Christmas din- 
ner. It v/as loaded also with hampers of game, and 
baskets and boxes of delicacies ; and hares hung dan- 
gling their long ears about the coachman's box, pres- 
ents from distant friends for the impending feast. I 
had three fine rosy-cheeked school-boys for my fellow 
passengers inside, full of the buxom health and manly 
spirit which I have observed in the children of this 
country. They were returning home for the holidays, 
in high glee, and promising themselves a world of 
enjoyment. It was delightful to hear the gigantic 
plans of the little rogues, and the impracticable feats 
they were to perform during their six weeks' emanci- 
pation from the abhorred thraldom of book, birch, and 
pedagogue. They were full of the anticipations of the 
meeting with the family and household, down to the 
very cat and dog; and of the joy they were to give 
their little sisters, by the presents with which their 
pockets were crammed ; but the meeting to which they 
seemed to look forward with the greatest impatience 
was with Bantam, which I found to be a pony, and, 
according to their talk, possessed of more virtues than 
any steed since the days of Bucephalus.^ How he 
could trot ! how he could run ! and then such leaps as 
he would take — there was not a hedge in the whole 
country that he could not clear. 

They were under the particular guardianship of the 
coachman, to whom, whenever an opportunity pre- 
sented, they addressed a host of questions, and pro- 

^ The favorite charger of Alexander the Great. Tradition 
tells how Alexander, in his boyhood, tamed Bucephalus, thus 
fulfilling the condition stated by an oracle as necessary for ob- 
^ining the throne of Macedon. 



THE STAGE-COACH, 43 

nounced him one of the best fellows in the world. 
Indeed, I could not but notice the more than ordinary 
air of bustle and importance of the coachman, who 
wore his hat a little on one side, and had a large 
bunch of Christmas greens stuck in the button-hole oi 
his coat. He is always a personage full of mighty 
care and business, but he is particularly so during this 
season, having so many commissions to execute in con- 
sequence of the great interchange of presents. And 
here, perhaps, it may not be unacceptable to my un- 
travelled readers, to have a sketch that may serve as 
a general representation of this very numerous and 
important class of functionaries, who have a dress, a 
manner, a language, an air, peculiar to themselves, 
and prevalent throughout the fraternity; so that, 
wherever an English stage-coachman may be seen, he 
cannot be mistaken for one of any other craft or mys- 
tery. 

He has commonly a broad, full face, curiously mot- 
tled with red, as if the blood had been forced by hard 
feeding into every vessel of the skin ; he is swelled into 
jolly dimensions by frequent potations of malt liquors, 
and his bulk is still further increased by a multiplicity 
of coats, in which he is buried like a cauliflower, the 
upper one reaching to his heels. He wears a broad- 
brimmed, low-crowned hat; a huge roll of colored 
handkerchief about his neck, knowingly knotted and 
tucked in at the bosom; and has in summer time 2, 
large bouquet of flowers in his button-hole, the pres' 
ent, most probably, of some enamored country lass 
His waistcoat is commonly of some bright color, 
striped, and his small clothes extend far below the 
knees, to meet a pair of jockey boots which reach 
about half way up his legs. 



14 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

All this costume is maintained with much precision 
he has a pride in having his clothes of excellent ma- 
terials, and, notwithstanding the seeming grossness of 
his appearance, there is still discernible that neatness 
and propriety of person, which is almost inherent in 
an Englishman. He enjoys great consequence and 
consideration along the road ; has frequent conferences 
with the village housewives, who look upon him as a 
man of great trust and dependence ; and he seems to 
have a good understanding with every bright-eyed 
country lass. The moment he arrives where the 
horses are to be changed, he throws down the reins 
with something of an air, and abandons the cattle to 
the care of the hostler ; his duty being merely to drive 
from one stage to another. When off the box, his 
hands are thrust into the pockets of his great coat, and 
he rolls about the inn yard with an air of the most 
absolute lordliness. Here he is generally surrounded 
by an admiring throng of hostlers, stable-boys, shoe- 
blacks, and those nameless hangers-on that infest inns 
and taverns and run errands, and do all kind of odd 
jobs for the privilege of battening on the drippings of 
the kitchen and the leakage of the tap-room. These all 
look up to him as to an oracle ; treasure up his cant 
phrases ; echo his opinions about horses and other top* 
ics of jockey lore ; and, above all, endeavor to imitate 
Ms air and carriage. Every ragamuffin that has a 
coat to his back, thrusts his hands in the pockets, 
rolls in his gait, talks slang, and is an embryo 
Coachey. 

Perhaps it might be owing to the pleasing serenity 
that reigned in my own mind, that I fancied I saw 
cheerfulness in every countenance throughout the 
journey. A stage-coach, however, carries animatioB 



THE STAGE-COACH. 45 

always with it, and puts the world in motion as it 
whirls along. The horn, sounded at the entrance of 
a village, produces a general bustle. Some hasten 
forth to meet friends ; some with bundles and band- 
boxes to secure places, and in the hurry of the moment 
can hardly take leave of the group that accompanies 
ihem. In the mean time, the coachman has a world 
of small commissions to execute. Sometimes he deliv- 
ers a hare or pheasant; sometimes jerks a small parcel 
or newspaper to the door of a public house ; and some- 
times, with knowing leer and words of sly import, 
hands to some half -blushing, half -laughing housemaid 
an odd-sliaped billet-doux from some rustic admirer. 
As the coach rattles through the village, every one 
runs to the window, and you have glances on every 
side of fresh country faces and blooming, giggling 
girls. At the corners are assembled juntos of village 
idlers and wise men, who take their stations there for 
the important purpose of seeing company pass; but 
the sagest knot is generally at the blacksmith's, to 
whom the passing of the coach is an event fruitful of 
much speculation. The smith, with the horse's heel 
in his lap, pauses as the vehicle whirls by ; the cyclops ^ 
round the anvil suspend their ringing hammers, and 
suffer the iron to grow cool, and the sooty spectre in 
brown paper cap, laboring at the bellows, leans on the 
handle for a moment, and permits the asthmatic engine 
to heave a long-drawn sigh, while he glares through 
the murky smoke and sulphureous gleams of the 
smithy. 

1 The word has the same form in the singular and the plural. 
The Cyclops, a mythical race of giants with but one eye, in the 
middle of the forehead, were said to assist Vulcan in his work 
shops under Mount Etna. 



46 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

Perhaps the impending holiday might have give>a 
a more than usual animation to the country, for it 
seemed to me as if everybody was in good looks and 
good spirits. Game, poultry, and other luxuries of 
the table were in brisk circulation in the villages; 
fche grocers', butchers', and fruiterers' shops were 
thronged with customers. The housewives were stir* 
ring briskly about, putting their dwellings in order; 
and the glossy branches of holly, with their bright 
red berries, began to appear at the windows. The 
scene brought to mind an old writer's account of 
Christmas preparations: "Now capons and hens, 
besides turkeys, geese, and ducks, with beef and mutton 
^ - must all die — for in twelve days ^ a multitude of 
people will not be fed with a little. Now plums and 
spice, sugar and honey, square it among pies and 
broth. Now or never must music be in tune, for the 
youth must dance and sing to get them a heat, while 
the aged sit by the fire. The country maid leaves 
half her market, and must be sent again, if she forgets 
a pack of cards on Christmas eve. Great is the con- 
tention of holly and ivy, whether master or dame wears 
the breeches. Dice and cards benefit the butler; and 
if the cook do not lack wit, he will sweetly lick his 
fingers." 

I was roused from this fit of luxurious meditation 
by a shout from my little travelling companions. 
They had been looking out of the coach windows for 
the last few miles, recognizing every tree and cot 
tage as they approached home, and now there was a 
general burst of joy. "There 's John! and there 's 

1 Christmas festivities in the past were usually celebrated 
with great spirit for twelve days, or until Twelfth Night (Jai> 
aary 6), and sometimes lasted until Candlemas (February 2) 



THE STAGE-COACH. 47 

vM Carlo! and there's Bantam!" cried the happy 
little rogues, clapping their hands. 

At the end of a lane there was an old, sober-looking 
servant in livery, waiting for them ; he was accompa- 
nied by a superannuated pointer, and by the redoubt- 
able Bantam, a little old rat of a pony, with a shaggy 
mane and long rusty tail, who stood dozing quietly by 
the road-side, little dreaming of the bustling times 
that awaited him. 

I was pleased to see the fondness with which the 
little fellows leaped about the steady old footman, and 
hugged the pointer, who wriggled his whole body for 
joy. But Bantam was the great object of interest; all 
wanted to mount at once, and it was with some diffi- 
culty that John arranged that they should ride by 
turns, and the eldest should ride first. 

Off they set at last ; one on the pony, with the dog 
bounding and barking before him, and the others hold- 
ing John's hands; both talking at once, and overpow- 
ering him with questions about home and with school 
anecdotes. I looked after them with a feeling in which 
I do not know whether pleasure or melancholy pre- 
dominated; for I was reminded of those days when, 
like them, I had neither known care nor sorrow, and 
a holiday was the summit of earthly felicity. We 
stopped a few moments afterwards, to water the 
horses ; and on resuming our route, a turn of the road 
brought us in sight of a neat country seat. I could 
just distinguish the forms of a lady and two young 
girls in the portico, and I saw my little comrades, 
with Bantam, Carlo, and old John, trooping along 
the carriage road. T leaned out of the coach window, 
in hopes of witnessing the happy meeting, but a grove 
of trees shut it from my sight. 



48 WASHINGTON IRVING, 

In the evening we reached a village where I had 
determined to pass the night. As we drove into the 
great gateway of the inn, I saw on one side the light 
of a rousing kitchen fire beaming through a window. 
I entered, and admired, for the hundredth time, that 
picture of convenience, neatness, and broad honest 
enjoyment, the kitchen of an English inn. It was of 
spacious dimensions, hung round with copper and tin 
vessels highly polished, and decorated here and there 
with a Christmas green. Hams, tongues, and flitches 
of bacon were suspended from the ceiling ; a smoke- 
jack ^ made its ceaseless clanking beside the fire-place, 
and a clock ticked in one corner. A well-scoured 
deal table extended along one side of the kitchen, 
with a cold round of beef, and other hearty viands, 
upon it, over which two foaming tankards of ale seemed 
mounting guard. Travellers of inferior order were 
preparing to attack this stout repast, whilst others sat 
smoking and gossiping over their ale on two high- 
backed oaken settles beside the fire. Trim house- 
maids were hurrying backwards and forwards, under 
the directions of a fresh, bustling landlady; but still 
seizing an occasional moment to exchange a flippant 
word, and have a rallying laugh, with the group round 
the fire. The scene completely realized Poor Robin's ' 
humble idea of the comforts of mid- winter : 

Now trees their leafy hats do bare 
To reverence Winter's silver hair ; 

1 A kind of circular wheel or fan, horizontally placed, that 
was made to revolve by the upward current in the chimney. It 
turned a spit. 

* Poor Robin was a pseudonym of the poet, Robert Herrick< 
under which he issued a series of almanacs that was begun ip 
16G1. The passage quoted is from the number for 1694. 



THE STAGE-COACH. 49 

A handsome hostess, merry host, 
A pot of ale now and a toast, 
Tobacco and a good coal fire, 
Are things this season doth require. 

I had not been long at the inn when a post-chaise 
drove up to the door. A young gentleman stepped cut, 
and by the light of the lamps I caught a glimpse of 
a countenance which I thought I knew. I moved for- 
ward to get a nearer view, when his eye caught mine. 
I was not mistaken; it was Frank Bracebridge, a 
sprightly, good-humored young fellow, with whom I 
had once travelled on the continent. Our meeting 
was extremely cordial, for the countenance of an old 
fellow-traveller always brings up the recollection of a 
thousand pleasant scenes, odd adventures, and excel- 
lent jokes. To discuss all these in a transient inter- 
view at an inn was impossible ; and finding that I was 
not pressed for time, and was merely making a tour 
of observation, he insisted that I should give him a 
day or two at his father's country seat, to which he 
was going to pass the holidays, and which lay at a 
few miles' distance. "It is better than eatino: a soli- 
tary Christmas dinner at an inn," said he, ''and 1 can 
assure you of a hearty welcome, in something of the 
old-fashioned style." His reasoning was cogent, and 
I must confess the preparation I had seen for universal 
festivity and social enjoyment had made me feel a little 
impatient of my loneliness. I closed, therefore, at 
once, with his invitation ; the chaise drove up to the 
door, and in a few moments I was on my way to the 
family mansion of the Bracebridges. 



56 WASHINGTON IRVING. 



CHRISTMAS DAY. 

Dark and dull night, flie hence away, 
And give the honor to this day 
That sees December turn'd to May. 



Why does the chilling winter's morne 
Smile like a field beset with come ? 
Or smell like to a meade new-shorne, 
Thus on the sudden ? Come and see 
The cause why things thus fragrant be. 

Herkick. 

When I woke the next morning,^ it seemed as if al 

the events of the preceding evening had been a dream^ 

and nothing but the identity of the ancient chamber 

convinced me of their reality. While I lay musing on 

my pillow, I heard the sound of little feet pattering 

outside of the door, and a whispering consultation. 

Presently a choir of small voices chanted forth an old 

Christmas carol, the burden of which was — 

Rejoice, our Saviour he was born 
On Christmas day in the morning. 

I rose softly, slipt on my clothes, opened the dooi 
suddenly, and beheld one of the most beautiful little 
fairy groups that a painter could imagine. It con- 
sisted of a boy and two girls, the eldest not more than 
six, and lovely as seraphs. They were going the 
rounds of the house, and singing at every chamber 
door, but my sudden appearance frightened them into 
mute bashfulness. They remained for a moment play- 
ing on their lips with their fingers, and now and then 
stealing a shy glance from under their eyebrows, until, 
as if by one impulse, they scampered away, and as 

1 Geoffrey Crayon, Gentleman, spent his Christmas Eve at 
Bracebridge Hall. The account which he gives of the festivities 
QU that occasion is omitted from this book. 



CHRISTMAS DAY. 51 

they turned an angle of the gallery, I heard them 
laughing in triumph at their escape. 

Everything conspired to produce kind and happy 
feelings, in this stronghold of old-fashioned hospital- 
ity. The window of my chamber looked out upon 
what in summer would have been a beautiful land- 
^)Cape. There was a sloping lawn, a fine stream wind- 
ing at the foot of it, and a tract of park beyond, with 
noble clumps of trees, and herds of deer. At a dis- 
tance was a neat hamlet, with the smoke from the cot 
rage chimneys hanging over it ; and a church, with its 
dark spire in strong relief against the clear cold sky. 
The house was surrounded with evergreens, according 
to the English custom, which would have given 
almost an appearance of summer; but the morning 
was extremely frosty ; the light vapor of the preced- 
ing evening had been precipitated by the cold, and 
covered all the trees and every blade of grass with its 
fine crystallizations. The rays of a bright morning 
sun had a dazzling effect among the glittering foliage. 
A robin, perched upon the top of a mountain ash that 
hung its clusters of red berries just before my window, 
was basking himself in the sunshine, and piping a few 
querulous notes ; and a peacock was displaying all the 
glories of his train, and strutting with the j)ride and 
gravity of a Spanish grandee, on the terrace walk 
below. 

I had scarcely dressed myself, when a servant 
appeared to invite me to family prayers. He showed 
me the way to a small chapel in the old wing of the 
house, where I found the principal part of the family 
already assembled in a kind of gallery, furnished with 
cushions, hassocks, and large prayer-books; the ser- 
vants were seated on benches below. The old gentle- 



52 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

man read prayers from a desk in front of the gallery, 
and Master Simon acted as clerk and made the 
responses; and I must do him the justice to say, that 
he acquitted himself with great gravity and decorum. 
The service was followed by a Christmas caroL 
which Mr. Bracebridge himself had constructed from 
a poem of his favorite author, Herrick ; and it had 
been adapted to an old church melody by Master 
Simon. As there were several good voices among the 
household, the effect w^as extremely pleasing; but I 
was particularly gratified by the exaltation of heart, 
and sudden sally of grateful feeling, with which the 
worthy squire delivered one stanza ; his eye glistening^ 
and his voice rambling out of all the bounds of time 
and tune : 

"'Tis thou that crown' st my glittering hearth 
With guiltlesse mirth, 
And giv'st me wassaile ^ bowles to drink, 
Spiced to the brink. 

Lord, 't is thy plenty -dropping hand 

That soiles my land. 
And giv'st me, for my bushell sowne, 

Twice ten for one." 

I afterwards understood that early morning service 
was read on every Sunday and saint's day throughout 
the year, either by Mr. Bracebridge or by some mem- 
ber of the family. It was once almost universally the 
case at the seats of the nobility and gentry of Eng«. 
land, and it is much to be regretted that the custom is 
falling into neglect ; for the dullest observer must be 



^ From the Anglo-Saxon, meaning Be in health. Hence it 
means the liquor with which one's health is drunk, — a kind of 
ale or wine flavored with nutmeg, sugar, toast, ginger, roasted 
pples, etc., and much used at Christmas and other festivities. 



CHRISTMAS DAY. 63 

/Sensible of the order and serenity prevalent in those 
households where the occasional exercise of a beautiful 
form of worship in the morning gives, as it were, the 
key-note to every temper for the day, and attunes every 
spirit to harmony. 

Our breakfast consisted of what the squire denomi- 
nated true old English fare. He indulged in some 
bitter lamentations over modern breakfasts of tea and 
toast, which he censured as among the causes of mod- 
ern effeminacy and weak nerves, and the decline of 
3ld English heartiness ; and though he admitted them 
to his table to suit the palates of his guests, yet there 
was a brave display of cold meats, wine, and ale, on 
the sideboard. 

After breakfast, I walked about the grounds with 
Frank Bracebridge and Master Simon, or Mr. Simon, 
as he was called by everybody but the squire. We 
were escorted by a number of gentlemanlike dogs, 
that seemed loungers about the establishment; from 
the frisking spaniel to the steady old stag-hound — - 
the last of which was of a race that had been in the 
family time out of mind — they were all obedient to a 
dog-whistle which hung to Master Simon's button- 
hole, and in the midst of their gambols would glance 
an eye occasionally upon a small switch he carried in 
his hand. 

The old mansion had a still more venerable look in 
the yellow sunshine than by pale moonlight; and I 
could not but feel the force of the squire's idea, that 
the formal terraces, heavily moulded balustrades, and 
clipped yew-trees, carried with them an air of proud 
aristocracy. 

There appeared to be an unusual number of pea- 
cocks about the place, and I was making some remarks 



54 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

upon what I termed a flock of them, that were bask- 
ing under a sunny wall, when I was gently corrected 
in my phraseology by Master Simon, who told me 
chat, according to the most ancient and approved trea^ 
tise on hunting, I must say a muster of peacocks. "Ib 
the same way," added he, with a slight air of pedantry, 
^we say a flight of doves or swallows, a be\y of quails^ 
a herd of deer, of wrens, or cranes, a skulk of foxes^ 
or a building of rooks." He went on to inform me 
that, according to Sir Anthony Fitzherbert, we ought 
to ascribe to this bird ''both understanding and glory; 
for, being praised, he will presently set up his tail, 
chiefly against the sun, to the intent you may the 
better behold the beauty thereof. But at the fall of 
the leaf, when his tail falleth, he will mourn and hide 
himseK in corners, till his tail come again as it was." 

I could not help smiling at this display of small 
erudition on so whimsical a subject; but I found that 
the peacocks were birds of some consequence at the 
hall; for Frank Bracebridge informed me that they 
were great favorites with his father, who was extremely 
careful to keep up the breed, partly because they 
belonged to chivalry, and w^ere in great request at the 
stately banquets of the olden time ; and partly because 
they had a pomp and magnificence about them, highly 
becoming an old family mansion. Nothing, he was 
accustomed to say, had an air of greater state and dig' 
nity than a peacock perched upon an antique stone 
balustrade. 

Master Simon had now to hurry off, having an 
appointment at the parish church with the village 
choristers, who were to perform some music of his 
selection. There was something extremely agreeable 
in the cheerful flow of animal spirits of the little 



CHRISTMAS DAT, 55 

man ; and I confess I had been somewhat surprised at 
his apt quotations from authors who certainly were 
not in the range of every-day reading. I mentioned 
this last circumstance to Frank Bracebridge, who told 
ine with a smile that Master Simon's whole stock of 
erudition was confined to some half a dozen old au' 
fchors, which the squire had put into his hands, and 
which he read over and over, whenever he had a stu- 
dious fit; as he sometimes had on a rainy day, or 
a long winter evening. Sir Anthony Fitzherbert's 
Book of Husbandry; Markham's Country Content- 
ments ; the Tretyse of Hunting, by Sir Thomas Cock- 
ayne. Knight; Izaak Walton's Angler, and two or 
three more such ancient worthies of the pen, were his 
standard authorities; and, like all men who know 
but a few books, he looked up to them with a kind of 
idolatry, and quoted them on all occasions. As to his 
songs, they were chiefly picked out of old books in the 
squire's library, and adapted to tunes that were popu- 
lar among the choice spirits of the last century. His 
practical application of scraps of literature, however, 
had caused him to be looked upon as a prodigy of 
book-knowledge by all the grooms, huntsmen, and 
small sportsmen of the neighborhood. 

While we were talking, we heard the distant toll of 
the village bell, and I was told that the squire was a 
little particular in having his household at church on 
a Christmas morning ; considering it a day of pouring 
out of thanks and rejoicing; for, as old Tusser ob- 
served, — 

" At Christmas be merry, and thankful withal, 
And feasu thy poor neighbors, the great with the small." 

"If you are disposed to go to church," said Frank 
Bracebridge, "I can promise you a specimen of my 



56 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

cousin Simon's musical achievements. As the church 
is destitute of an organ, he has formed a band from 
the village amateurs, and established a musical club 
for their improvement ; he has also sorted a choir, as 
he sorted my father's pack of hounds, according to 
the directions of Jervaise Markham, in his Country 
Contentments 5 for the bass he has sought out all the 
''deep, solemn mouths,' and for the tenor the 'loud- 
ringing mouths, ' among the country bumpkins ; and 
for 'sweet mouths' he has culled with curious taste 
among the prettiest lassies in the neighborhood; 
though these last, he affirms, are the most difficult 
to keep in tune ; your pretty female singer being ex- 
ceedingly wayward and capricious, and very liable to 
accident." 

As the morning, though frosty, was remarkably 
fine and clear, the most of the family walked to the 
church, which was a very old building of gray stone, 
and stood near a village, about half a mile from the 
park gate. Adjoining it was a low snug parsonage, 
which seemed coeval with the church. The front of 
it was perfectly matted with a yew-tree, that had been 
trained against its walls, through the dense foliage of 
which, apertures had been formed to admit light into 
the small antique lattices. As we passed this shel- 
tered nest, the parson issued forth and preceded us. 

I had expected to see a sleek well-conditioned pastor, 
6uch as is often found in a snug living in the vicinity 
of a rich patron's table, but I was disappointed. The 
parson was a little, meagre, black-looking man, with a 
grizzled wig that was too wide, and stood off from 
each ear; so that his head seemed to have shrunk 
away within it, like a dried filbert in its shell. He 
wore a rusty coat, with great skirts, and pockets that 



CHRISTMAS DAY. 6T 

jirould have held, the church Bible and prayer-book: 
and his small legs seemed still smaller, from being 
planted in large shoes, decorated with enormous 
buckles. 

I was informed by Frank Bracebridge that the par- 
son had been a chum of his father's at Oxford, and 
had received this living shortly after the latter had 
come to his estate. He was a complete black-letter 
hunter,^ and would scarcely read a work printed in 
the Eoman character. The editions of Caxton and 
Wynkin de Worde were his delight ; and he was inde- 
fatigable in his researches after such old English writ- 
ers as have fallen into oblivion from their worthless- 
ness. In deference, perhaps, to the notions of Mr. 
Bracebridge, he had made diligent investigations into 
the festive rites and holiday customs of former times ; 
and had been as zealous in the inquiry, as if he had 
been a boon companion ; but it was merely with that 
plodding spirit with which men of adust ^ temperament 
follow up any track of study, merely because it is de- 
nominated learning ; indifferent to its intrinsic nature, 
whether it be the illustration of the wisdom, or of the 
ribaldry and obscenity of antiquity. He had pored 
over these old volumes so intensely, that they seemed 
to have been reflected into his countenance ; which, if 
the face be indeed an index of the mind, might be 
compared to a title-page of black-letter. 

On reaching the church porch, we found the parson 
rebuking the gray -headed sexton for having used mis- 

1 That is, a person fond of collecting those earliest of English 
tNTorks that were printed in black-letter (Blarft^ILetter). Such works 
belong to the fourteenth century. 

2 From the Latin adustus, inflamed or scorched. It is used 
here in the decaying sense of gloomy or melancholic. 



58 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

tletoe among the greens with which the church was 
decorated. It was, he observed, an unholy plant, 
profane by having been used by the Druids in their 
mystic ceremonies ; and though it might be innocently 
employed in the festive ornamentino^ of halls and 
kitchens, yet it had been deemed by the Fathers of the 
Church as unhallowed, and totally unfit for sacred 
purposes. So tenacious was he on this point, that 
the poor sexton was obliged to strip down a great part 
of the humble trophies of his taste, before the parson 
would consent to enter upon the service of the day. 

The interior of the church was venerable, but sim ^ 
pie ; on the walls were several mural monuments ot 
the Bracebridges, and just beside the altar was a tomb 
of ancient workmanship, on which lay the effigy of a 
warrior in armor, with his legs crossed, a sign of his 
having been a crusader. I was told it was one of the 
familj" who had signalized himself in the Holy Land, 
and the same whose picture hung over the fire-place in 
hhe hall. 

During service, Master Simon stood up in the pew, 
dnd repeated the responses very audibly; evincing 
that kind of ceremonious devotion punctually observed 
by a gentleman of the old school, and a man of old 
family connections. I observed, too, that he turned 
over the leaves of a folio prayer-book with something 
of a flourish, possibly to show off an enormous seal-ring 
which enriched one of his fingers, and which had 
the look of a family relic. But he was evidently 
most solicitous about the musical part of the service, 
keeping his eye fixed intently on the choir, and beat- 
ing time with much gesticulation and emphasis. 

The orchestra was in a small gallery, and presented 
a most whimsical grouping of heads, piled one abov<? 



CHRISTMAS DAY. 59 

ihe other, among which I particularly noticed that of 
the village tailor, a pale fellow with a retreating fore- 
head and chin, who played on the clarinet, and seemed 
to have blown his face to a point; and there was 
another, a short pursy man, stooping and laboring at 
a bass-viol, so as to show nothing but the top of g 
roimd bald head, like the egg of an ostrich. There 
were two or three pretty faces among the female sing-- 
ers, to which the keen air of a frosty morning had 
given a bright rosy tint ; but the gentlemen choristers 
had evidently been chosen, like old Cremona fiddles, 
more for tone than looks ; and as several had to sing 
from the same book, there were clusterings of odd 
physiognomies, not unlike those groups of cherubs we 
sometimes see on country tombstones. 

The usual services of the choir were managed toler- 
ably well, the vocal parts generally lagging a little 
behind the instrumental, and some loitering fiddler 
now and then making up for lost time by travelling 
over a passage with prodigious celerity, and clearing 
more bars than the keenest fox-hunter to be in at the 
death. But the great trial was an anthem that had 
been prepared and arranged by Master Simon, and on 
which he had founded great expectation. Unluckilj" 
there was a blunder at the very outset; the musicians 
became flurried ; Master Simon was in a fever ; every- 
thing went on lamely and irregularly until they came 
to a chorus beginning, "Now let us sing with one 
accord,'* which seemed to be a signal for parting com- 
pany : all became discord and confusion ; each shifted 
for himself, and got to the end as well, or, rather, as 
soon as he could, excepting one old chorister in a pair 
of horn spectacles, bestriding and pinching a long, 
sonorous nose, who happened to stand a little apart. 



80 WASHINGTON IRVING, 

and, being wrapped up in his own melody, kept on a 
quavering course, wriggling his head, ogling his book, 
and winding all up by a nasal solo of at least three 
bars' duration. 

The parson gave us a most erudite sermon on the 
rites and ceremonies of Christmas, and the propriety 
of observing it, not merely as a day of thanksgiving, 
but of rejoicing; supporting the correctness of his 
opinions by the earliest usages of the church, and 
enforcing them by the authorities of Theophilus of 
Cesarea, St. Cyprian, St. Chrysostom, St. Augustine, 
and a cloud more of Saints and Fathers, from whom 
he made copious quotations. I was a little at a loss 
to perceive the necessity of such a mighty array of 
forces to maintain a point which no one present seemed 
inclined to dispute; but I soon found that the good 
man had a legion of ideal adversaries to contend with; 
having, in the course of his researches on the subject 
of Christmas, got comj)letely embroiled in the secta- 
rian controversies of the Revolution, when the Puri- 
tans made such a fierce assault upon the ceremonies 
of the church, and poor old Christmas was driven out 
of the land by proclamation of Parliament.^ The 

1 From the Flying Eagle, a small gazette, published Decem- 
ber 24, 1652 : ^^ The House spent much time this day about the 
business of the Navy, for settling the affairs at sea, and, before 
they rose, were presented with a terrible remonstrance against 
Christmas day, grounded upon divine Scriptures, 2 Cor. v. 16 ; 1 
Cor. XV. 14, 17 ; and in honour of the Lord's Day, grounded 
upon these Scriptures, John xx. 1 ; Rev. i. 10 ; Psalm cxviii. 24; 
Lev. xxiii. 7, 11 ; Mark xv. 8 ; Psalm Ixxxiv. 10 ; in which 
Christmas is called Anti-christ's masse, and those Masse-mon- 
gers nnd Papists who observe it, &c. In consequence of which 
Parliament spent some time in consultation about the abolitiou 
of Christmas day, passed orders to that effect, and resolved to sit 



CHRISTMAS DAY. 61 

wortliy parson lived but with times past, and knew but 
little of the present. 

Shut up among worm-eaten tomes in the retirement 
of his antiquated little study, the pages of old times 
were to him as the gazettes of the day ; while the era 
of the Revolution was mere modern history. He for- 
got that nearly two centuries had elapsed since the fiery 
persecution of poor mince-pie throughout the land; 
when plum porridge was denounced as "mere pop 
ery," and roast beef as anti-christian ; and that Christ 
mas had been brought in again triumphantly with the 
merry court of King Charles at the Restoration. He 
kindled into warmth with the ardor of his contest, and 
the host of imaginary foes with whom he had to com- 
bat ; he had a stubborn conflict with old Prynne and 
two or three other forgotten champions of the Round 
Heads, ^ on the subject of Christmas festivity; and 
concluded by urging his hearers, in the most solemn 
and affecting manner, to stand to the traditional cus-* 
toms of their fathers, and feast and make m^rry ob 
this joyful anniversary of the church. 

I have seldom known a sermon attended apparently 
with more immediate effects; for on leaving the 
church, the congregation seemed one and all possessed 
with the gayety of spirit so earnestly enjoined by their 
pastor. The elder folks gathered in knots in the 
church-yard, greeting and shaking hands; and the 
children ran about crying ''Ule! Ule! " and repeating 

on the following day, which was commonly called Christmas 
day."— W. I. 

1 A nickname given to the Puritans, or Parliamentary 
party, in the reign of Charles I., in allusion to their short' 
cut hair. The Cavaliers, or Royalists, wore their hair in long 
rin<rlets. 



62 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

some uncoutli rhymes,^ which the parson, who hac! 
jomed us, mformed me had been handed down from 
days of yore. The villagers doffed their hats to the 
squire as he passed, giving him the good wishes of th( 
season with every appearance of heartfelt sincerity, 
and were invited by him to the hall, to take something 
to keep out the cold of the weather ; and I heard bless* 
ings uttered by several of the poor, which convinced 
me that, in the midst of his enjoyments, the worthy 
old cavalier had not forgotten the true Christmas 
virtue of charity. 

On our way homeward, his heart seemed overflowed 
with generous and happy feelings. As we passed over 
a rising ground which commanded something of a 
prospect, the sounds of rustic merriment now and then 
reached our ears; the squire paused for a few mo- 
ments, and looked around with an air of inexpressible 
benignity. The beauty of the day was, of itself, suf- 
ficient to inspire philanthropy. Notwithstanding the 
frostiness of the morning, the sun in his cloudless 
journey had acquired sufficient power to melt away 
the thin covering of snow from every southern decliv- 
ity, and to bring out the living green which adorns 
an English landscape even in mid-winter. Large 
tracts of smiling verdure contrasted with the dazzling 
whiteness of the shaded slopes and hollows. Every 
sheltered bank, on which the broad rays rested; 
yielded its silver rill of cold and limpid water, glit- 
tering through the dripping grass ; and sent up slight 
exhalations to contribute to the thin haze that hung 

1 " Ule ! Ule I 
Three puddings in a pule ; 
Crack nuts and cry * Ule.' " 

Ule is perhaps the same as Yule, a word that means Chrisimai 
* Three puddings in a pule," that is, in a splutter or stew. 



CHRISTMAS DAY. 63 

just above the surface of the earth. There was some- 
thing truly cheering in this triumph of warmth and 
verdure over the frosty thraldom of winter; it was, 
a>s the squire observed, an emblem of Christmas hos- 
pitality, breaking through the chills of ceremony and 
selfishness, and thawing every heart into a flow. He 
pointed with pleasure to the indications of good cheer 
reeking from the chimneys of the comfortable farm- 
houses and low thatched cottages. "I love," said he, 
"to see this day well kept by rich and poor; it is a 
great thing to have one day in the year, at least, when 
you are sure of being welcome wherever you go, and 
of having, as it were, the world all thrown open to 
you; and I am almost disposed to join with Poor 
Robin, in his malediction on every churlish enemy to 
this honest festival : — 

" * Those who at Christinas do repine, 

And would fain hence despatch him, 
May they with old Duke Humphry ^ dinOp 
Or else may Squire Ketch ^ catch 'em.' " 

^ " It is cruel and shameful that the name of the worthy Duke 
Humphrey of Gloucester should be associated with the want of 
a dinner, for he was celebrated for his hospitality." 

Notes and Queries. 

Humphrey Plantagenet, Duke of Gloucester, was the youngest 
^on of Henry LY., who reigned from 1399 to 1413. To dine 
with Duke Humphrey m^aiit originally to have a good dinner, 
then to eat by the bounty of another, and finally, after the 
duke's death, it came to signify among his former almsmen, 
by a kind of irony, to go without a dinner. Another account 
plausibly attributes the proverb to a wit who came down from 
London with a party of friends to dine at the White Hart Inn at 
Bt. Albans, but who was accidentally shut up in the Abbey of St. 
Albans, where Humphrey lay buried, and so lost his dinner. 

2 Also known as Jack Ketch, a name given in England to the 
public hangman or executioner. 



(34 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

The squire went on to lament the dei^lorable decay 
of the games and amusements which were once preva- 
lent at this season among the lower orders, and coun- 
tenanced by the higher ; when the old halls of castles 
and manor-houses were thrown open at daylight ; when 
the tables were covered with brawn, and beef, and 
liumming ale ; when the harp and the carol resounded 
all day long, and when rich and poor were alike wel- 
come to enter and make merry. ^ '^'Our old games 
and local customs," said he, "had a great effect in 
making the peasant fond of his home, and the promo- 
tion of them by the gentry made him fond of his lord. 
They made the times merrier, and kinder, and better, 
and I can truly say, with one of our old poets, — 

" * I like them well — the curious preciseness 
And all-pretended gravity of those 
That seek to banish hence these harmless sports, 
Have thrust away much ancient honesty.' 

"The nation," continued he, "is altered; we have 
almost lost our simple true-hearted peasantry. They 
have broken asunder from the higher classes, and seem 
to think their interests are separate. They have 
become too knowing, and begin to read newspapers, 
listen to alehouse politicians, and talk of reform. I 
think one mode to keep them in good humor in these 
hard times would be for the nobility and gentry to 

» " An English gentleman at the opening of the great day, ^. e 
on Christmas day in the morning, had all his tenants and neigh- 
bors enter his hall by day-break. The strong beer was broached, 
and the black jacks went plentifully about with toast, sugar and 
nutmeg, and good Cheshire cheese. The Hackin (the great sau^ 
sage) must be boiled by daybreak, or else two young men must 
take the maiden (i. e, the cook) by the arms and run her round 
the market-place till she is shamed of her laziness." (Quoted 
by Irving from Round about our Sea-Coal Fire.) 



CHRISTMAS DAY, 65 

pass more time on their estates, mingle more among 
the country people, and set tlie merry old English 
games going again." 

Such was the good squire's project for mitigating 
public discontent : and, indeed, he had once attempted 
to put his doctrine in practice, and a few years before 
had kept open house during the holidays in the old 
style. The country people, however, did not under- 
stand how to play their parts in the scene of hospital- 
ity ; many uncouth circumstances occurred ; the manor 
was overrun by all the vagrants of the country, and 
more beggars drawn into the neighborhood in one 
week than the parish officers could get rid of in a 
year. Since then, he had contented himself with 
inviting the decent part of the neighboring peasantry 
to call at the hall on Christmas day, and with distrib- 
uting beef, and bread, and ale, among the poor, that 
they might make merry in their own dwellings. 

We had not been long home when the sound of 
music was heard from a distance. A band of coun- 
try lads, without coats, their shirt sleeves fancifullj' 
tied with ribbons, their hats decorated with greens, 
and clubs in their hands, were seen advancing up the 
avenue, followed by a large number of villagers and 
peasantry. They stopped before the hall door, where 
the music struck up a peculiar air, and the lads per- 
formed a curious and intricate dance, advancing, 
retreating, and striking their clubs together, keeping 
exact time to the music; while one, whimsically 
crowned with a fox's skin, the tail of which flaunted 
down his back, kept capering round the skirts of the 
dance, and rattling a Christmas-box with many antic 
gesticulations. 

The squire eyed this fanciful exhibition with great 



tT6 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

interest and delight, and gave me a full account of its 
origin, which he traced to the times when the Romans 
held possession of the island ; plainly proving that this 
was a lineal descendant of the sword-dance of the 
ancients. "It was now," he said, "nearly extinct, 
but he had accidentally met with traces of it in the 
neighborhood, and had encouraged its revival; though, 
to tell the truth, it was too apt to be followed up by 
the rough cudgel-play, and broken heads in the even- 
ing." 

After the dance was concluded, the whole party 
was entertained with brawn and beef, and stout home- 
brewed. The squire himself mingled among the rus- 
tics, and was received with awkward demonstrations 
of deference and regard. It is true, I perceived two or 
three of the younger peasants, as they were raising 
their tankards to their mouths, when the squire's back 
was turned, making something of a grimace, and giv- 
ing each other the wink ; but the moment they caught 
my eye they pulled grave faces, and were exceedingly 
demure. With Master Simon, however, they all 
seemed more at their ease. His varied occupations 
and amusements had made him well known through- 
out the neighborhood. He was a visitor at every 
farmhouse and cottage; gossiped with the farmers 
and their wives ; romped with their daughters ; and, 
like that type of a vagrant bachelor, the humble-bee, 
tolled the sweets from all the rosy lips of the country 
round. 

The bashfulness of the guests soon gave way before 
good cheer and affability. There is something genu- 
ine and affectionate in the gayety of the lower orders, 
when it is excited by the bounty and familiarity of 
those above them; the warm glow of gratitude enters 



CHRISTMAS DAY. 61 

mto their mirth, and a kind word or a small plea- 
santry frankly uttered by a patron, gladdens the heart 
of the dependent more than oil and wine. When the 
squire had retired, the merriment increased, and there 
was much joking and laughter, particularly between 
Master Simon and a hale, ruddy -faced, white-headed 
farmer, who appeared to be the wit of the village ; for 
I observed all his companions to wait with open 
mouths for his retorts, and burst into a gratuitous 
laugh before they could well understand them. 

The whole house indeed seemed abandoned to merri- 
ment ; as I passed to my room to dress for dinner, I 
heard the sound of music in a small court, and look- 
ing through a window that commanded it, I perceived 
a band of wandering musicians, with pandean pipes 
and tambourine; a pretty, coquettish housemaid was 
dancing a jig with a smart country lad, while several 
of the other servants were looking on. In the midst 
of her sport the girl caught a glimpse of my face at 
the window, and, coloring up, ran off with an air of 
roguish affected confusion. 



88 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM. 

A TRAVELLER'S TALE.^ 

He that supper for is dight, 

He lyes fuii cold, I trow, this aightl 

Yestreen to chamber I him led, 

This night Gray-steel has made his bed ! 

Sm Egeb, Sib Geahame, and Sib Gbay-stkCl 

On the summit of one of the heights of the Oden* 
^ald, a wild and romantic tract of Upper Germany, 
that lies not far from the confluence of the Maine and 
the Rhine, there stood, many, many years since, the 
Castle of the Baron Von Landshort. It is now quite 
fallen to decay, and almost buried among beech trees 
and dark firs; above which, however, its old watch- 
tower may still be seen struggling, like the former 
possessor I have mentioned, to carry a high head, and 
look down upon a neighboring country. 

The baron was a dry branch of the great family of 
Katzenellenbogen,^ and inherited the relics of the prop- 
erty, and aU the pride, of his ancestors. Though the 
warlike disposition of his predecessors had much 
impaired the family possessions, yet the baron stiB 
endeavored to keep up some show of former state, 
The times were peaceable, and the German nobles, in 
general^ had abandoned their inconvenient old castles, 
perched like eagles' nests among the mountains, and 

1 The erudite reader, well versed in good-for-nothing lore, 
will perceive that the above Tale must have been suggested to 
the old Swiss by a little French anecdote, a circumstance said to 
have taken place in Paris. — W. I. 

^ Cat's Elbow — the name of a family of those parts, very 
powerful in former times. The appellation, we are told, was 
given in compliment to a peerless dame of the family, celebrated 
for her fine arm. — Wr I. 



THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM. 69 

had built more convenient residences in the valleys; 
still the baron remained proudly drawn up in his little 
fortress, cherishing with hereditary inveteracy all the 
old family feuds; so that he was on ill terms with 
some of his nearest neighbors, on account of disputes 
that had happened between their great-great-grand- 
fathers. 

The baron had but one child, a daughter ; but Na- 
ture, when she grants but one child, always compen- 
sates by making it a prodigy ; and so it was with the 
daughter of the baron. All the nurses, gossips, and 
country cousins, assured her father that she had not 
her equal for beauty in all Germany ; and who should 
know better than they? She had, moreover, been 
brought up with great care under the superintendence 
of two maiden aunts, who had spent some years of 
their early life at one of the little German courts, and 
were skilled in all the branches of knowledge necessary 
to the education of a fine lady. Under their instruc- 
tions she became a miracle of accomplishments. By 
the time she was eighteen she could embroider to 
admiration, and had worked whole histories of the 
saints in tapestry, with such strength of expression in 
their countenances, that they looked like so many souls 
in purgatory. She could read without great difficulty, 
and had spelled her way through several church 
legends, and almost all the chivalric wonders of thf 
Heldenbuch.^ She had even made considerable pro- 
ficiency in writing; could sign her own name without 
missing a letter, and so legibly that her aunts could 
read it without spectacles. She excelled in making 
little elegant good-for-nothing lady -like knick-knacks 

1 A collection of German epic poems. The word means hook 
qf heroes. 



70 WASHINGTON IRVING, 

of all kinds ; was versed in the most abstruse dancing 
^f the day ; played a number of airs on the harp and 
guitar ; and knew all the tender ballads of the Minnie- 
lieders ^ by heart. 

Her aunts, too, having been great flirts and 
coquettes in their younger days, were admirably cal- 
culated to be vigilans guardians and strict censors of 
the conduct of their niece ; for there is no duenna so 
rigidly prudent, and inexorably decorous, as a super- 
annuated coquette. She was rarely suffered out of 
their sight; never went beyond the domains of the 
castle, unless well attended, or rather well watched; 
had continual lectures read to her about strict deco- 
rum and implicit obedience ; and as to the men — 
pah ! she was taught to hold them at such a distance 
and in such absolute distrust, that, unless properly 
authorized, she would not have cast a glance upon the 
handsomest cavalier in the world — no, not if he were 
even dying at her feet. 

The good effects of this system were wonderfully 
apparent. The young lady was a pattern of docility 
and correctness. While others were wasting their 
sweetness in the glare of the world, and liable to be 
plucked and thrown aside by every hand, she was 
coyly blooming into fresh and lovely womanhood 
under the protection of those immaculate spinsters, 
like a rose-bud blushing forth among guardian thorns. 
Her aunts looked upon her with pride and exultation, 
and vaunted that though all the other young ladies 
in the world might go astray, yet, thank Heaven, 

^ That is, minnesingers, or love-singers, a class of German 
poets and musicians who flourished from the twelfth to the four* 
teenth century. They were chiefly of noble birth, and wrote and 
sang of love and beauty. 



THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM. 71 

aothing of the kind could happen to the heiress of 
Katzenellenbogen. 

But however scantily the Baron Von Landshort 
might be provided with children, his household was 
by no means a small one, for Providence had enriched 
him with abundance of poor relations. They, one and 
all, possessed the affectionate disposition common to 
humble relatives; were wonderfully attached to the 
baron, and took every possible occasion to come in 
swarms and enliven the castle. All family festivals 
were commemorated by these good people at the bar- 
on's expense; and when they were filled with good 
cheer, they would declare that there was nothing on 
earth so delightful as these family meetings, these 
jubilees of the heart. 

The baron, though a small man, had a large soul, 
and it swelled with satisfaction at the consciousness of 
being the greatest man in the little world about him. 
He loved to tell long stories about the stark old war- 
riors whose portraits looked grimly down from the 
walls around, and he found no listeners equal to those 
who fed at his expense. He was much given to the 
marvellous, and a firm believer in all those supernat- 
ural tales with which every mountain and valley in 
Germany abounds. The faith of his guests exceeded 
even his own : they listened to every tale of wonder 
with open eyes and mouth, and never failed to be 
astonished, even though repeated for the hundredth 
time. Thus lived the Baron Von Landshort, the 
oracle of his table, the absolute monarch of his little 
territory, and happy, above all things, in the per- 
suasion that he was the wisest man of the age. 

At the time of which my story treats, there was 
a great family gathering at the castle, on an affair oJ 



T2 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

the utmost importance : it was to receive the destined 
bridegroom of the baron's daughter. A negotiation 
had been carried on between the father and an old 
nobleman of Bavaria, to unite the dignity of their 
houses by the marriage of their children. The pre- 
liminaries had been conducted with proper punctilio. 
The young people were betrothed without seeing each 
other, and the time was appointed for the marriage 
ceremony. The young Count Von Altenburg had 
been recalled from the army for the purpose, and was 
actually on his way to the baron's to receive his bride. 
Missives had even been received from him, from 
Wurtzburg, where he was accidentally detained, men- 
tioning the day and hour when he might be expected 
to arrive. 

The castle was in a tumult of preparation to give 
him a suitable welcome. The fair bride had been 
decked out with uncommon care. The two aunts had 
superintended her toilet, and quarrelled the whole 
morning about every article of her dress. The young 
lady had taken advantage of their contest to follow the 
bent of her own taste ; and fortunately it was a good 
one. She looked as lovely as youthful bridegroom 
could desire ; and the flutter of expectation heightened 
the lustre of her charms. 

The suffusions that mantled her face and neck, the 
gentle heaving of the bosom, the eye now and then 
lost in reverie, all betrayed the soft tumult that was 
going on in her little heart. The aunts were continu- 
ally hovering around her ; for maiden aunts are apt 
to take great interest in affairs of this nature. They 
were giving her a world of staid counsel how to deport 
herself, what to say, and in what manner to receive 
the expected lover. 



THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM. 73 

The baron was no less busied in preparations. He 
iiad, in truth, nothing exactly to do; but he was nat- 
urally a fuming, bustling little man, and could not 
remain passive when all the world was in a hurry. He 
worried from top to bottom of the castle, with an air 
of infinite anxiety ; he continually called the servants 
from their work to exhort them to be diligent, and 
buzzed about every hall and chamber, as idly restless 
and importunate as a blue-bottle fly of a warm siun- 
mer's day. 

In the meantime the fatted caK had been killed ; the 
forests had rung with the clamor of the huntsmen ; the 
kitchen was crowded with good cheer ; the cellars had 
yielded up whole oceans of Rliein-wein and Feme- 
wein^ and even the great Heidelburg tun ^ had been laid 
under contribution. Everything was ready to receiv^e 
the distinguished guest with Saus und Braus ^ in the 
true spirit of German hospitality — but the guest 
delayed to make his appearance. Hour rolled after 
hour. The sun, that had poured his downward rays 
upon the rich forest of the Odenwald, now just 
gleamed along the summits of the mountains. The 
baron mounted the highest tower, and strained his 
eyes in hopes of catching a distant sight of the count 
and his attendants. Once he thought he beheld them ; 
the sound of horns came floating from the valley, pro- 
longed by the mountain echoes. A number of horse- 
men were seen far below, slowly advancing along the 

^ A huge cask capable of containing eight hundred hogsheads. 
It is in the cellar of the ruined castle of Heidelberg, an ancient 
and picturesque city of Germany. 

2 Literally, riot and noise. The expression is intended to cover 
the hearty good cheer, gayety, and hilarity of a warm reception. 
Something of the German flavor is lost in any translation. Fro 
nunciation, souce {pu as in house) oont hrouce. 



74 WASHINGTON IRVING, 

road; but when they had nearly reached the foot oi 
the mountain, they suddenly struck off in a different 
direction. The last ray of sunshine departed — the 
bats began to flit by in the twilight — the road grew 
dimmer and dimmer to the view ; and nothing appeared 
stirring in it, but now and then a peasant lagging 
homeward from his labor. 

While the old castle of Landshort was in this state 
of perplexity, a very interesting scene was transacting 
in a different part of the Odenwald. 

The young Count Von Altenburg was tranquilly 
pursuing his route in that sober jog-trot way, in which 
a man travels toward matrimony when his friends 
have taken all the trouble and uncertainty of court- 
ship off his hands, and a bride is waiting for him, as 
certainly as a dinner, at the end of his journey. He 
had encountered at Wurtzburg a youthful companion 
in arms, with whom he had seen some service on the 
frontiers ; Herman Von Starkenf aust, one of the stout- 
est hands and worthiest hearts of German chivalry, 
who was now returning from the army. His father's 
castle was not far distant from the old fortress of Land- 
short, although an hereditary feud rendered the fami- 
lies hostile, and strangers to each other. 

In the warm-hearted moment of recognition, the 
young friends related all their past adventures and 
fortunes, and the count gave the whole history of his 
intended nuptials with a young lady whom he had 
never seen, but of whose charms he had received the 
most enrapturing descriptions. 

iis the route of the friends lay in the same direc- 
tion, they agreed to perform the rest of their journey 
together; and, that they might do it the more lei- 
surely, set off from Wurtzburg at an early hour, the 



THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM, 75 

count having given directions for his retinue to follow 
and overtake him. 

They beguiled their wayfaring with recollections of 
their military scenes and adventures; but the count 
was apt to be a little tedious, now and then, about 
the reputed charms of his bride, and the felicity that 
awaited him. 

In this way they had entered among the mountains 
of the Odenwald, and were traversing one of its most 
lonely and thickly wooded passes. It is well known 
that the forests of Germany have always been as much 
infested by robbers as its castles by spectres; and at 
this time the former were particularly numerous, from 
the hordes of disbanded soldiers wandering about the 
country. It will not appear extraordinary, therefore, 
that the cavaliers were attacked by a gang of these 
stragglers, in the midst of the forest. They defended 
themselves with bravery, but were nearly overpow- 
ered, when the count's retinue arrived to their assis- 
tance. At sight of them the robbers fled, but not 
until the count had received a mortal wound. He was 
slowly and carefully conveyed back to the city of 
Wurtzburg, and a friar summoned from a neighbor- 
ing convent, who was famous for his skill in adminis- 
tering to both soul and body. But half of his skiD 
was superfluous; the moments of the unfortunate 
count were numbered. 

With his dying breath he entreated his friend to re* 
pair instantly to the castle of Landshort, and explain 
the fatal cause of his not keeping his appointment 
with his bride. Though not the most ardent of lovers, 
he was one of the most punctilious of men, and ap- 
peared earnestly solicitous that his mission should be 
speedily and courteously executed. '' Unless this is 



ff^ WASHINGTON IRVING. 

done," said he, "I shall not sleep quietly in m^ 
grave! " He repeated these last words with peculiar 
solemnity. A request, at a moment so impressive, 
admitted no hesitation. Starkenfaust endeavored to 
soothe him to calmness; promised faithfully to exe- 
cute his wish, and gave him his hand in solemr 
pledge. The dying man pressed it in acknowledg- 
ment, but soon lapsed into delirium — raved about his 
bride — his engagements — his plighted word ; ordered 
his horse, that he might ride to the castle of Landshort, 
and expired in the fancied act of vaulting into the 
saddle. 

Starkenfaust bestowed a sigh and a soldier's tear 
on the untimely fate of his comrade, and then pon- 
dered on the awkward mission he had undertaken. 
His heart was heavy, and his head perplexed ; for he 
was to present himself an unbidden guest among hos- 
tile people, and to damp their festivity with tidings 
fatal to their hopes. Still there were certain whisper- 
ings of curiosity in his bosom to see this far-famed 
beauty of Katzenellenbogen, so cautiously shut up 
from the world ; for he was a passionate admirer of 
the sex, and there was a dash of eccentricity and en- 
terprise in his character, that made him fond of all 
singular adventure. 

Previous to his departure he made all due arrange- 
ments with the holy fraternity of the convent for the 
funeral solemnities of his friend, who was to be buried 
in the cathedral of Wurtzburg, near some of his illus- 
trious relatives; and the mourning retinue of the 
count took charge of his remains. 

It is now high time that we should return to the an* 
cient family of Katzenellenbogen, who were impatient 
for their guest, and still more for their dinner ; and to 



THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM. 77 

^-he worthy little baron, whom we left airing himself 
>n the watch-tower. 

Night closed in, but still no guest arrived. The 
baron descended from the tower in despair. The 
banquet, which had been delayed from hour to hour, 
could no longer be postponed. The meats were already 
overdone ; the cook in an agony ; and the whole house- 
hold had the look of a garrison that had been reduced 
by famine. The baron was obliged reluctantly to give 
orders for the feast without the presence of the guest. 
All were seated at table, and just on the point of com- 
mencing, when the sound of a horn from without the 
gate gave notice of the approach of a stranger. An- 
other long blast filled the old courts of the castle with 
its echoes, and was answered by the warder from the 
walls. The baron hastened to receive his future son- 
in-law. 

The drawbridge had been let down, and the stran- 
ger was before the gate. He was a tall, gallant cav- 
alier, mounted on a black steed. His countenance was 
pale, but he had a beaming, romantic eye, and an air 
of stately melancholy. The baron was a little morti- 
fied that he should have come in this simple, solitary 
style. His dignity for a moment was ruffled, and he 
felt disposed to consider it a want of proper respect 
for the important occasion, and the important family 
with which he was to be connected. He pacified him- 
self, however, with the conclusion that it must have 
been youthful impatience which had induced him thus 
to spur on sooner than his attendants. 

''I am sorry," said the stranger, "to break in upon 
you thus unseasonably " — 

Here the baron interrupted him with a world of 
Qompliments and greeting; for, to tell the truth, he 



78 WASHINGTON IRVING, 

prided himself upon his courtesy and eloquence. The 
stranger attempted, once or twice, to stem the torrent 
of words, but in vain, so he bowed his head and suf- 
fered it to flow on. By the time the baron had come 
fco a pause, they had reached the inner court of the 
castle; and the stranger was again about to speak, 
)when he was once more interrupted by the appearance 
of the female part of the family, leading forth the 
shrinking and blushing bride. He gazed on her for 
a moment as one entranced ; it seemed as if his whole 
soul beamed forth in the gaze, and rested upon that 
lovely form. One of the maiden aunts whispered 
something in her ear; she made an effort to speak; 
her moist blue eye was timidly raised, gave a shy 
glance of inquiry on the stranger, and was cast again 
to the ground. The words died away; but there was 
a sweet smile playing about her lips, and a soft dim- 
pling of the cheek that showed her glance had not been 
unsatisfactory. It was impossible for a girl of the 
fond age of eighteen, highly predisposed for love and 
matrimony, not to be pleased with so gallant a cav- 
alier. 

The late hour at which the guest had arrived left no 
time for parley. The baron was peremptory, and de- 
ferred all particular conversation until the mornings 
and led the way to the untasted banquet. 

It was served up in the great hall of the castle. 
Around the walls hung the hard-favored portraits ol 
the heroes of the house of Katzenellenbogen, and the 
trophies which they had gained in the field and in the 
chase. Hacked croslets, splintered jousting spears, 
and tattered banners were mingled with the spoils of 
gylvan warfare; the jaws of the wolf and the tusks of 
the boar grinned horribly among cross-bows and bat- 



THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM. T9 

tie-axes, and a huge pair of antlers branched immedi 
ately over the head of the youthful bridegroom. 

The cavalier took but little notice of the company 
or the entertainment. He scarcely tasted the banquet 
but seemed absorbed in admiration of his bride. He 
conversed in a low tone, that could not be overheard 
— for the language of love is never loud; but where 
is the female ear so dull that it cannot catch the soft- 
est whisper of the lover? There was a mingled ten- 
derness and gravity in his manner that appeared to 
have a powerful effect upon the young lady. Her 
color came and went, as she listened with deep atten- 
tion. Now and then she mnde some blushing reply, 
and when his eye was turne^i away, she would steal a 
sidelong glance at his romantic countenance, and heave 
a gentle sigh of tender happiness. It was evident that 
the young couple were completely enamoured. The 
aunts, who were deeply versed in the mysteries of the 
heart, declared that they had fallen in love with each 
other at first sight. 

The feast went on merrily, or at least noisily, for 
the guests were all blessed with those keen appetites 
that attend upon light purses and mountain air. The 
baron told his best and longest stories, and never had 
he told them so well, or with such great effect. If 
there was anything marvellous, his auditors were lost 
in astonishment; and if anything facetious, they were 
sure to laugh exactly In the right place. The baron, 
it is true, like most great men, was too dignified to 
utter any joke but a dull one; it was always enforced, 
however, by a bumper of excellent Hochheimer ; and 
even a dull joke, at one's own table, served up with 
jolly old wine. Is Irresistible. Many good things were 
said by poorer and keener wits, that would not bear 
repeating, except on similar occasions; many sly 



80 WASHINGTON IRVING, 

speeches whispered in ladies' ears, that almost con 
viilsed them with suppressed laughter ; and a song oi 
two roared out by a poor but merry and broad-faced 
cousin of the baron, that absolutely made the maiden 
aunts hold up their fans. 

Amidst all this revelry, the stranger guest main- 
tained a most singular and unseasonable gravity. His 
countenance assumed a deeper cast of dejection as the 
evening advanced, and, strange as it may appear, even 
the baron's jokes seemed only to render him the more 
melancholy. At times he was lost in thought, and at 
times there was a perturbed and restless wandering of 
the eye that bespoke a mind but ill at ease. His con- 
versation with the bride became more and more ear- 
nest and mysterious. Lowering clouds began to steal 
over the fair serenity of her brow, and tremors to run 
through her tender frame. 

All this could not escape the notice of the company. 
Their gayety was chilled by the unaccountable gloom 
of the bridegroom ; their spirits were infected; whis^ 
pers and glances were interchanged, accompanied by 
shrugs and dubious shakes of the head. The song and 
the laugh grew less and less frequent; there were 
dreary pauses in the conversation, which were at 
length succeeded by wild tales and supernatural le- 
gends. One dismal story produced another still more 
dismal, and the baron nearly frightened some of the 
ladies into hysterics with the history of the goblin 
horseman that carried away the fair Leonora; ^ a 

1 The heroine of a popular ballad by Burger (1748-1794), a 

German lyric poet. Her lover dies, reappears to Leonora aftei 

his death, and carries her off on horseback behind him : 

Tramp, tramp, across the land they speede ; 
Splash, splash, across the see : 
*' Hurrah I the dead can ride apace ; 
Dost feare to ride with mee ? ** 

From Taylor's Translation 



THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM, 31 

dreadful story, which has since been put into excellent 
verse, and is read and believed by all the world. 

The bridegroom listened to this tale with profound 
attention. He kept his eyes steadily fixed on the 
baron, and, as the story drew to a close, began grad- 
ually to rise from his seat, growing taller and taller, 
until, in the baron's entranced eye, he seemed almost 
to tower into a giant. The moment the tale was fin- 
ished, he heaved a deep sigh, and took a solemn fare- 
well of the company. They were all amazement. The 
baron was perfectly thunderstruck. 

"What ! going to leave the castle at midnight? 
why, everything was prepared for his reception; a 
chamber was ready for him if he wished to retire." 

The stranger shook his head mournfully and myste- 
riously: "I must lay my head in a different chamber 
to-night!" 

There was something in this reply, and the tone in 
which it was uttered, that made the baron's heart mis- 
give him ; but he rallied his forces, and repeated his 
hospitable entreaties. The stranger shook his heacj 
silently^ but positively, at every offer; and, waving 
his farewell to the company, stalked slowly out of the 
hall. The maiden aunts were absolutely petrified; the 
bride hung her head, and a tear stole to her eye. 

The baron followed the stranger to the great court of 
the castle, where the black charger stood pawing the 
earth, and snorting with impatience. When they had 
reached the portal, whose deep archway was dimly 
lighted by a cresset,^ the stranger paused, and ad- 
dressed the baron in a hollow tone of voice, which the 
vaulted roof rendered still more sepulchral. "No\v 

- starry lamps and blazing cressets, fed 
With napbtba and asphaltus. 
MUton. 



82 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

that we are alone," said he, "I will impart to you the 
reason of my going. I have a solemn, an indispensa- 
ble engagement " — 

•'Why," said the baron, "cannot you send some 
one in your place ? " 

"It admits of no substitute — I must attend it ir 
person — I must away to Wurtzburg cathedral" — 

"Ay," said the baron, plucking up sjDirit, "but not 
until to-morrow — to-morrow you shall take your bride 
there." 

"No! no ["replied the stranger, with tenfold so 
lemnity, "my engagement is with no bride — the 
worms ! the worms expect me ! I am a dead man — I 
have been slain by robbers — my body lies at Wurtz- 
burg — at midnight I am to be buried — the grave is 
waiting for me — I must keep my appointment! " 

He sprang on his black charger, dashed over the 
drawbridge, and the clattering of his horse's hoofs 
was lost in the whistling of the night blast. 

The baron returned to the hall in the utmost con- 
sternation, and related what had passed. Two ladief 
fainted outright ; others sickened at the idea of having 
banqueted with a spectre. It was the opinion of 
some, that this might be the wild huntsman,^ famous 
in German legend. Some talked of mountain sprites, 
of wood-demons, and of other supernatural beings, 
with which the good people of Germany have been so 
grievously harassed since time immemorial. One of 
the poor relations ventured to suggest that it might 

^ He is the subject of a popular German tradition that repre- 
sents him as a spectre, appearing at night with his dogs and 
sometimes with a train of attendants, and urging on the chase. 
There are similar traditions in France, England, and Scotland 
Biirger has made the wild huntsman the subject of a ballad 
Der Wilde Jdger. 



THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM. 88 

De some sportive evasion of the young cavalier, an<J 
that the very gloominess of the caprice seemed to ac- 
cord with so melancholy a personage. This, however, 
drew on him the indignation of the whole company, 
and especially of the baron, who looked upon him as 
little better than an infidel ; so that he was fain to ab- 
jure his heresy as speedily as possible, and come into 
the faith of the true believers. 

But whatever may have been the doubts entertained, 
they were completely put to an end by the arrival, 
next day, of regular missives, confirming the intelli- 
gence of the young count's murder, and his interment 
in Wurtzburg cathedral. 

The dismay at the castle may well be imagined. 
The baron shut himself up in his chamber. The 
guests, who had come to rejoice with him, could not 
think of abandoning him in his distress. They wan- 
dered about the courts, or collected in groups in the 
hall, shaking their heads and shrugging their shoul- 
ders, at the troubles of so good a man ; and sat longer 
than ever at table, and ate and drank more stoutly than 
ever, by way of keeping up their spirits. But the 
situation of the widowed bride was the most pitiable. 
To have lost a husband before she had even embraced 
him — and such a husband ! if the very spectre could 
be so gracious and noble, what must have been the 
living man? She filled the house with lamentations. 

On the night of the second day of her widowhood, 
she had retired to her chamber, accompanied by one 
of her aunts, who insisted on sleeping with her. The 
aunt, who was one of the best tellers of ghost stories 
in all Germany, had just been recounting one of her 
longest, and had fallen asleep in the very midst of it. 
The chamber was remote, and overlooked a small 



84 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

garden. The niece lay pensively gazing at the beams 
of the rising moon, as they trembled on the leaves of 
an aspen-tree before the lattice. The castle clock had 
just tolled midnight, when a soft strain of music stole 
up from the garden. She rose hastily from her bed 
and stepped lightly to the window. A tall figure stood 
among the shadows of the trees. As it raised its 
head, a beam of moonlight fell upon the countenanceo 
Heavens and earth! she beheld the Spectre Bride- 
groom ! A loud shriek at that moment burst upon 
her ear, and her aunt, who had been awakened by the 
music, and had followed her silently to the window, 
fell into her arms. When she looked again, the 
spectre had disappeared. 

Of the two females, the aunt now required the most 
soothing, for she was perfectly beside herself with 
terror. As to the young lady, there was something, 
even in the spectre of her lover, that seemed endear- 
ing. There was still the semblance of manly beauty; 
and though the shadow of a man is but little calculated 
to satisfy the affections of a love-sick girl, yet, where 
the substance is not to be had, even that is consol- 
ing. The aunt declared she would never sleep in that 
chamber again; the niece, for once, was refractory, 
and declared as strongly that she would sleep in no 
other in the castle: the consequence was, that she 
had to sleep in it alone ; but she drew a promise from 
her aunt not to relate the story of the spectre, lest she 
should be denied the only melancholy pleasure left her 
on earth — that of inhabiting the chamber over which 
the guardian shade of her lover kept its nightly vigils. 

How long the good old lady would have observed 
this promise is uncertain, for she dearly loved to talk 
of the marvellous, and there is a triumph in being the 



THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM, 85 

first to tell a frightful story; it is, however, still 
quoted in the neighborhood, as a memorable instance 
of female secrecy, that she kept it to herself for a 
whole week ; when she was suddenly absolved from all 
further restraint, by intelligence brought to the break- 
zast table one morning that the young lady was not to 
be found. Her room was empty — the bed had not 
been slept in — the window was open, and the bird 
had flown ! 

The astonishment and concern with which the in- 
telligence was received, can only be imagined by 
those who have witnessed the agitation which the mis- 
haps of a great man cause among his friends. Even 
the poor relations paused for a moment from the inde- 
fatigable labors of the trencher; when the aunt, who 
had at first been struck speechless, wrung her hands^ 
and shrieked out, "The goblin! the goblin! she's 
carried away by the goblin! " 

In a few words she related the fearful scene of the 
garden, and concluded that the spectre must have car- 
ried off his bride. Two of the domestics corroborated 
the opinion, for they had heard the clattering of a 
horse's hoofs down the mountain about midnight, and 
had no doubt that it was the spectre on his blacl 
charger, bearing her away to the tomb. All presem 
were struck with the direful probability; for events 
of the kind are extremely common in Germany, as^ 
many well authenticated histories bear witness. 

What a lamentable situation was that of the poor 
baron! What a heart-rending dilemma for a fond 
father, and a member of the great family of Katzen- 
ellenbogen ! His only daughter had either been rapt 
away to the grave, or he was to have some wood- 
demon for a son-in-law, and, perchance, a troop of 



86 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

goblin grandchildren. As usual, lie was completely 
bewildered, and all the castle in an ujDroar. The men 
were ordered to take horse, and scour every road and 
path and glen of the Odenwald. The baron himself 
iad just drawn on his jack-boots, girded on his sword, 
and was about to mount his steed to sally forth on the 
doubtful quest, when he was brought to a pause by 
a new apparition. A lady was seen approaching the 
castle, mounted on a palfrey, attended by a cavalier 
on horseback. She galloped up to the gate, sprang 
from her horse, and falling at the baron's feet 
embraced his knees. It was his lost daughter, and 
her companion — the Spectre Bridegroom! The 
baron was astounded. He looked at his daughter, 
then at the spectre, and almost doubted the evidence 
of his senses. The latter, too, was wonderfully im- 
proved in his appearance, since his visit to the world 
of spirits. His dress was splendid, and set off a 
noble figure of manly symmetry. He was no longei 
pale and melancholy. His fine countenance wag 
flushed with the glow of youth, and joy rioted in his 
large dark eye. 

The mystery was soon cleared up. The cavalier (for 
in truth, as you must have known all the while, he 
was no goblin) announced himself as Sir Herman Yor 
Starkenfaust. He related his adventure with th( 
young count. He told how he had hastened to the 
castle to deliver the unwelcome tidings, but that the 
eloquence of the baron had interrupted him in every 
attempt to tell his tale ; how the sight of the bride had 
completely captivated him, and that to pass a few 
hours near her, he had tacitly suffered the mistake to 
continue ; how he had been sorely perplexed in what 
way to make a decent retreat, until the baron's goblin 



THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM. 87 

stories had suggested his eccentric exit ; how, fearing 
the feudal hostility of the family, he had repeated his 
visits by stealth — had haunted the garden beneath 
the young lady's window — had wooed — had won — 
had borne away in triumph — and, in a word, had 
wedded the fair. 

Under any other circumstances the baron would 
have been inflexible, for he was tenacious of paternal 
authority, and devoutly obstinate in all family feuds ; 
but he loved his daughter; he had lamented her as 
lost ; he rejoiced to find her still alive ; and, though 
her husband was of a hostile house, yet, thank Heaven, 
he was not a goblin. There was something, it must 
be acknowledged, that did not exactly accord with his 
notions of strict veracity, in the joke the knight had 
passed upon him of his being a dead man ; but several 
old friends present, who had served in the wars, 
assured him that every stratagem was excusable in 
love, and that the cavalier was entitled to especial 
privilege, having lately served as a trooper. 

Matters, therefore, were happily arranged. The 
baron pardoned the young couple on the spot. The 
revels at the castle were resumed. The poor relations 
overwhelmed this new member of the family with lov- 
ing kindness ; he was so gallant, so generous, — and 
so rich. The aunts, it is true, were somewhat scan- 
dalized that their system of strict seclusion and passive 
obedience should be so badly exemplified, but attrib- 
uted it all to their negligence in not having the win- 
dows grated. One of them was particularly mortified 
at having her marvellous story marred, and that the 
only spectre she had ever seen should turn out a coun- 
terfeit ; but the niece seemed perfectly happy at hav- 
ing found him substantial flesh and blood, — and so 
the storv ends. 



88 WASHINGTON IRVING. 



WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 

The foundations of Westminster Abbey were laid in 1055 A. d. The 
principal parts of the existing abbey were built by Henry III. Henry 
Vil. added tlie chapel that bears his name. Additions and changes 
have been made at intervals throughout its history. Its extreme 
length is 511 feet ; its extreme width, 203 feet. The height of the 
roof is 102 feet. Its shape is that of a cross. The interior of the 
abbey has at all times aroused the most ardent admiration. 

Dean Stanley gives the following account of its founding : — 

" There are, probably, but few Englishmen now who care to know 
that the full title of Westminster Abbey is the ' Collegiate Church or 
Abbey of St. Peter.' But at the time of its first foundation, and 
long afterwards, the whole neighborhood and the whole story of the 
foundation breathed of nothing else but the name, which was itself a 
reality. ' The soil of St. Peter ' was a recognized legal phrase. The 
name of Peter's ' Eye,' or ' Island,' which still lingers in the low land 
of Battersea, came by virtue of its connection with the Chapter oi: 
Westminster. Any one who infringed the charter of the abbey 
would, it was declared, be specially condemned by St. Peter when he 
sits on his throne judging the twelve tribes of Israel. Of the abbey 
of St. Peter at Westminster, as of the more celebrated basilica of St. 
Peter at Rome, it may be said that ' super banc Petram ' the church 
of Westminster has been built. 

"Roimd the undoubted fact that this devotion to St. Peter was 
Edward's prevailing motive, gathered, during his own lifetime or 
immediately after, the various legends which pve it form and shape 
in connection with the special peculiarities of the abbey. . . . 

*' Such as these were the motives of Edward. Under their influ- 
ence was fixed what has ever since been the local centre of the Eng- 
lish monarchy and nation — of the palace and the legislature no less 
than of the abbey. 

" There had, no doubt, already existed, by the side of the Thames, 
an occasional resort of the English kings. But the Roman fortress 
in London, or the Saxon city of Winchester, had been hitherto their 
usual abode. Edward himself had formerly spent his time chiefly at 
his birthplace, Islip, or at the rude palace on the rising ground, still 
marked by various antique remains, above ' Old Windsor.' But now, 
for the sake of superintending the new church at Westminster, he 
lived more than any previous king in the regal residence (which he 
in great part rebuilt) close beside it. The abbey and the palace 
grew together, and into each other, in the closest union ; just as \v 
Scotland, a few years later, Dumfermline Palace sprang up by Dum- 



WESTMINSTER ABBEY, 89 

fermline Abbey, and, yet later again, Holyrood Abbey — first within 
the Castle of Edinburgh, and then on its present site — by Holyrood 
Palace. 

' ' Th-e Chamber of St. Edward, ' as it was called from him, or ' the 
Painted Chamber,' from its subsequent decorations, was the kernel oi 
the palace of Westminster. This was the ' Old Palace,' as distin- 
guished from the ' New Palace ' of William Kufus, of which the only 
yestige is the hall, looking out on what, from its novelty at that time, 
was called the ' New Palace Yard,' — as the open space, before what 
were the Confessor's buildings, is still known as ' Old Palace Yard.' . . 

"The abbey had been fifteen years in building. The king had 
spent upon it one tenth of the property of the kingdom. It was to be 
a marvel of its kind. As in its origin it bore the tracer of the fan- 
tastic, childish character of the king and of the age, in its architec- 
ture it bore the stamp of the peculiar position which Edward occupies' 
in English history between tSaxon and Norman. By birth he was a 
Saxon, but in all else he was a foreigner. Accordingly, the church at 
Westminster was a wide sweeping innovation on all that had been seen 
before. ' Destroying the old building,' he says in his charter, ' I have 
built up a new one from the very foundation. ' Its fame as ' a new 
style of composition ' lingered in the minds of men for generations^ 
It was the first cruciform church in England, from which all the rest 
of like shape were copied, — an expression of the increasing hold 
which the idea of the Crucifixion, in the tenth century, had laid on the 
imagination of Europe. Its massive roof and pillars formed a con.- 
trast with the rude wooden rafters and beams of the common Saxon 
churches. Its very size — occupying, as it did, almost the whole area 
of the present building — was in itself portentous. The deep founda- 
tions, of large square blocks of gray stone, were duly laid. The east 
end was rounded into an apse. A tower rose in the centre and two at 
the western point, with five large bells. The hard, strong stones were 
richly sculptured. The windows were filled with stained glass. The 
roof was covered with lead. The cloisters, chapter-house, refectory, 
dormitory, infirmary, with its spacious chapel, if not completed by 
Edward, were all begun, and finished in the next generation on the 
same plan. This structure, venerable as it would be if it had lasted 
to our time, has almost entirely vanished. Possibly one vast dark arch 
in the southern transept — certainly the substructures of the dormitory, 
with their huge pillars, ' grand and regal at the bases and capitals ' 
— the massive low-browed passage, leading from the great cloister to 
Little Dean's Yard — and some portions of the refectory and of the 
infirmary chapel, remain as specimens of the work which astonished 
the last age of the Anglo-Saxon and the first age of the Norman mon^ 
^chy." 



90 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

When I behold, with deep astonishment, 
To famous Westminster how there resorte 
Living in brasse or stoney monument, 
The princes and the worthies of all sorte ; 
Doe not I see reformde nobilitie, 
Without contempt, or pride, or ostentation^ 
And looke upon offenselesse majesty, 
Naked of pomp or earthly domination ? 
And how a play-game of a painted stone 
Contents the quiet now and silent sprites, 
Whome all the world which late they stood upou 
Could not content nor quench their appetitea. 

Life is a frost of cold felicitie, 

And death the thaw of aU our vanitie. 

Chkistolero's Epigrams, by T. B. 1598. 

On one of those sober and rather melancholy days^ 
in the latter part of autumn, when the shadows of 
morning and evening almost mingle together, and 
throw a gloom over the decline of the year, I passed 
several hours in rambling about Westminster Abbey. 
There was something congenial to the season in the 
mournful magnificence of the old pile ; and as I passed 
H;s threshold, it seemed like stepping back into the 
regions of antiquity, and losing myself among the 
shades of former ages. 

I entered from the inner court of Westminster 
School,^ through a long, low, vaulted passage, that had 
an almost subterranean look, being dimly lighted in 
one part by circular perforations in the massive walls. 
Through this dark avenue I had a distant view of the 
cloisters, with the figure of an old verger, in his black 
gown, moving along their shadowy vaults, and seem- 
ing like a spectre from one of the neighboring tombs. 

The approach to the abbey through these gloomy 
monastic remains prepares the mind for its solemn 

1 Founded by Queen Elizabeth, with provisions for the educa- 
tion of forty boys, known as Queen's Scholars, for the universi- 
ties. Other boys may also attend it. It includes certain parts 
of the ancient abbey that have survived the changes of time. 



WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 91 

contemplation, The cloisters still retain something 
of the quiet and seclusion of former days. The gray 
walls are discolored by damps, and crumbling with 
age; a coat of hoary moss has gathered over the 
inscriptions of the mural monuments, and obscured 
the death's heads and other funereal emblems. The 
sharp touches of the chisel are gone from the rich 
tracery of the arches; the roses which adorned the 
key-stones have lost their leafy beauty; everything 
bears marks of the gradual dilapidations of time, 
which yet has something touching and pleasing in its 
very decay. 

The sun was pouring down a yellow autumnal ray 
into the square of the cloisters; beaming upon a 
scanty plot of grass in the centre, and lighting up an 
angle of the vaulted passage with a kind of dusty 
splendor. From between the arcades, the eye glanced 
up to a bit of blue sky or a passing cloud, and beheld 
the sun-gilt pinnacles of the abbey towering into the 
azure heaven. 

As I paced the cloisters, sometimes contemplating 
this mingled picture of glory and decay, and some- 
times endeavoring to decipher the inscriptions on the 
tombstones, which formed the pavement beneath my 
feet, my eye was attracted to three figures, rudely 
carved in relief, but nearly worn away by the footsteps 
of many generations. They were the effigies of three 
of the early abbots; the epitaphs were entirely ef- 
faced; the names alone remained, having no doubt 
been renewed in later times. (Vitalis. Abbas. 1082, 
and Gislebertus Crispinus. Abbas. 1114, and Lau- 
rentius. Abbas. 1176.) I remained some little while, 
musing over these casual relics of antiquity, thus 
left like wrecks upon this dist>ant shore of time, telling 



92 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

no tale but that such beings had been and had per^ 
ished; teaching no moral but the futility of that 
pride which hopes still to exact homage in its ashes^ 
and to live in an inscription. A little longer, and 
even these faint records will be obliterated, and the 
monument will cease to be a memorial. Whilst I was 
yet looking down upon these gravestones, I was roused 
by the sound of the abbey clock, reverberating irom 
buttress to buttress, and echoing among the cloisters. 
It is almost startling to hear this warning of departed 
time sounding among the tombs, and telling the lapse 
of the hour, which, like a billow, has rolled us onward 
towards the grave. 

I pursued my walk to an arched door opening to the 
interior of the abbey. On entering here, the magni- 
tude of the building breaks fully upon the mind, con- 
trasted with the vaults of the cloisters. The eyes 
gaze with wonder at clustered columns of gigantic 
dimensions, with arches springing from them to such 
an amazing height; and man' wandering about their 
bases, shrunk into insignificance in comparison with 
his own handiwork. The spaciousness and gloom of 
this vast edifice produce a profound and mysterious 
awe. We step cautiously and softly about, as if fear- 
ful of disturbing the hallowed silence of the tomb, 
while every footfall whispers along the walls, an^ 
chatters among the sepulchres, making us more sensi- 
ble of the quiet we have interrupted. 

It seems as if the awful nature of the place presses 
down upon the soul, and hushes the beholder into 
noiseless reverence. We feel that we are surrounded 
by the congregated bones of the great men of past 
times, who have filled history with their deeds and 
the earth with their renown. And yet it almost pra 



WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 93 

vokes a smile at the vanity of human ambition, to see 
how they are crowded together and jostled in the dust; 
what parsimony is observed in doling out a scanty 
nook, a gloomy corner, a little portion of earth, to 
those whom, when alive, kingdoms could not satisfy 
and how many shapes, and forms, and artifices, are 
devised to catch the casual notice of the passengerc 
and save from forgetfulness, for a few short years, 
a name which once aspired to occupy ages of the 
world's thought and admiration. 

I passed some time in Poets' Corner, which occu- 
pies an end of one of the transepts or cross aisles of 
the abbey. The monuments are generally simple ; for 
the lives of literary men afford no striking themes for 
the sculptor. Shakespeare and Addison have statues 
erected to their memories ; but the greater part have 
busts, medallions, and sometimes mere inscriptions. 
Notwithstanding the simplicity of these memorials, 1 
have always observed that the visitors to the abbey 
remain longest about them. A kinder and fonder feel- 
ing takes place of that cold curiosity or vague admira. 
tion with which they gaze on the splendid monuments 
of the great and the heroic. They linger about these 
as about the tombs of friends and companions; for 
indeed there is something of companionship between 
the author and the reader. Other men are known to 
posterity only through the medium of history, which 
is continually growing faint and obscure; but the 
intercourse between the author and his fellow-men 
is ever new, active, and immediate. He has lived 
for them more than for himself; he has sacrificed 
surrounding enjoyments, and shut himself up from 
the delights of social life, that he might the more 
mtimately commune with distant minds and distant 



94 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

ages. Well may the world cherish his renown ; foi 
it has been purchased, not by deeds of violence and 
blood, but by the diligent dispensation of pleasure. 
Well may posterity be grateful to his memory; for 
he has left it an inheritance, not of empty names 
and sounding actions, but whole treasures of wis- 
dom, bright gems of thought, and golden veins of 
language. 

From Poets' Corner I continued my stroll towards 
that part of the abbey which contains the sepulchres 
of the kings. I wandered among what once were 
chapels, but which are now occupied by the tombs and 
monuments of the great. At every turn, I met with 
some illustrious name, or the cognizance of some pow- 
erful house renowned in history. As the eye darts 
into these dusky chambers of death, it catches glimpses 
of quaint effigies: some kneeling in niches, as if in 
devotion; others stretched upon the tombs, with 
hands piously pressed together ; warriors in armor, as 
if reposing after battle; prelates, with crosiers and 
mitres ; and nobles in robes and coronets, lying as it 
were in state. In glancing over this scene, so 
strangely populous, yet where every form is so still 
and silent, it seems almost as if we were treading a 
mansion of that fabled city ^ where every being had 
been suddenly transmuted into stone. 

I paused to contemplate a tomb on which lay the 
effigy of a knight in complete armor. A large buck-= 
ler was on one arm ; the hands were pressed together 
in supplication upon the breast ; the face was almost 
covered by the morion ; the legs were crossed in token 
of the warrior's having been engaged in the holy war. 
It was the tomb of a crusader ; of one of those mill- 
^ See Arabia7i Nights' Entertainments ^ Sixty-fifth Night. 



WESTMINSTER ABBEY. ^6 

tary enthusiasts who so strangely mingled religion and 
romance, and whose exploits form the connecting link 
between fact and fiction, between the history and the 
fairy tale. There is something extremely picturesque 
in the tombs of these adventurers, decorated as they 
are with rude armorial bearings and Gothic sculpture. 
They comport with the antiquated chapels in whicl 
they are generally found; and in considering them, 
the imagination is apt to kindle with the legendary 
associations, the romantic fiction, the chivalrous pomp 
and pageantry, which poetry has spread over the wars 
for the sepulchre of Christ. They are the relics of 
times utterly gone by ; of beings passed from recollec- 
tion ; of customs and manners with which ours have 
no affinity. They are like objects from some strange 
and distant land, of which we have no certain know- 
ledge, and about which all our conceptions are vague 
and visionary. There is something extremely solemn 
and awful in those effigies on Gothic tombs, extended 
as if in the sleep of death, or in the supplication of 
the dying hour. They have an effect infinitely more 
impressive on my feelings than the fanciful attitudes, 
the over-wrought conceits, and allegorical groups, 
which abound on modern monuments. I have been 
struck, also, with the superiority of many of the old 
sepulchral inscriptions. There was a noble way, in 
former times, of saying things simply, and yet saying 
them proudly; and I do not know an epitaph that 
breathes a loftier consciousness of family worth and 
honorable lineage, than one which affirms, of a noble 
house, that " all the brothers were brave, and all the 
sisters virtuous." 

in the opposite transept to Poets' Corner stands a 
monument which is among the most renowned achieve- 



96 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

ments of modern art ; but which to me appears hor- 
rible rather than sublime. It is the tomb of Mrs. 
Nightingale,^ by Roubillae. The bottom of the mon- 
ument is represented as throwing open its marble 
doors, and a sheeted skeleton is starting forth. The 
shroud is falling from his fleshless frame as he 
launches his dart at his victim. She is sinking into 
her affrighted husband's arms, who strives, with vain 
and frantic effort, to avert the blow. The whole is 
executed with terrible truth and spirit; we almost 
fancy we hear the gibbering yell of triumph bursting 
from the distended jaws of the spectre. But why 
should we thus seek to clothe death with unnecessary 
terrors, and to spread horrors round the tomb of 
those we love? The grave should be surrounded by 
everything that might inspire tenderness and venera- 
tion for the dead; or that might win the living to 
virtue. It is the place, not of disgust and dismay, 
but of sorrow and meditation. 

While wandering about these gloomy vaults and 
silent aisles, studying the records of the dead, the 
sound of busy existence from without occasionally 
reaches the ear : the rumbling of the passing equipage ; 
the murmur of the multitude; or perhaps the light 
laugh of pleasure. The contrast is striking with the 
deathlike repose around; and it has a strange effect 
upon the feelings, thus to hear the surges of active life 
hurrying along and beating against the very walls ol 
the sepulchre. 

I continued in this way to move from tomb to tomb, 
and from chapel to chapel. The day was gradually 

1 Lady Elizabeth Nightingale, who died in 1731. The monu* 
ment, which was erected in 1758, is by Louis Francois Roubillae 
(or Roubiliac), a French sculptor (1695-1762). 



WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 97 

rearing away ; the distant tread of loiterers about the 
abbey grew less and less frequent; the sweet-tongued 
bell was summoning to evening prayers ; and I saw at 
a distance the choristers, in their white surplices, 
crossing the aisle and entering the choir. I stood 
before the entrance to Henry the Seventh's chapel. 
A flight of steps lead up to it, through a deep and 
gloomy, but magnificent arch. Great gates of brass, 
richly and debcately wrought, turn heavily upon their 
hinges, as if proudly reluctant to admit the feet of 
common mor^als into this most gorgeous of sepul- 
chres. 

On entering, the eye is astonished by the pomp oi 
architecture ^nd the elaborate beauty of sculptured 
detail. The very walls are wrought into universal 
ornament, encrusted with tracery, and scooped into 
niches, crowded with the statues of saints and mar- 
tyrs. Stone seems, by the cunning labor of the chisel^ 
to have been robbed of its weight and density, sus- 
pended aloft, as if by magic, and the fretted roof 
achieved with the wonderful minuteness and airy se- 
curity of a cobweb. 

Along the sides of the chapel are the lofty stalls of 
the Knights of the Bath,^ richly carved of oak, though 

1 The second order of knighthood in England, that of the 
Garter ranking first. It was the practice of the early sovereigns 
before their coronation to create a number of knights. The cere- 
mony of bathing used to be practiced at the inauguration of the 
knight as an emblem or token of the purity required of him 
under the laws of chivalry. The name of this order appears as 
early as the time of Henry IV. Only persons of high rank or 
distinguished service are admitted. There are three grades or 
classes within the order, known as knights grand cross (K. G. C), 
knights commanders (K. C. B.), and companions (C, B.), the 
first two only being entitled to the appellation of Sir, 



98 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

with the grotesque decorations of Gothic architecture* 
On the pinnacles of the stalls are affixed the helmets 
and crests of the knights, with their scarfs and swords ; 
and above them are suspended their banners, embla- 
zoned with armorial bearings, and contrasting the 
splendor of gold and purple and crimson with the 
cold gray fretwork of the roof. In the midst of this 
grand mausoleum stands the sepulchre of its founder, 
— his effigy, with that of his queen, extended on a 
sumptuous tomb, and the whole surrounded by a 
superbly-wrought brazen railing. 

There is a sad dreariness in this magnificence ; this 
strange mixture of tombs and trophies; these em- 
blems of living and aspiring ambition, close beside 
mementos which show the dust and oblivion in which 
all must sooner or later terminate. Nothing im- 
presses the mind with a deeper feeling of loneliness, 
than to tread the silent and deserted scene of former 
throng and pageant. On looking round on the vacant 
stalls of the knights and their esquires, and on the 
rows of dusty but gorgeous banners that were once 
borne before them, my imagination conjured up the 
scene when this hall was bright with the valor and 
beauty of the land; glittering with the splendor of 
jewelled rank and military array ; alive with the tread 
of many feet, and the hum of an admiring multitude. 
All had passed away ; the silence of death had settled 
again upon the place ; interrupted only by the casual 
chirping of birds, which had found their way into 
the chapel, and built their nests among its friezes 
and pendants, — sure signs of solitariness and deser* 
tion. 

When I read the names inscribed on the banners, 
they were those of men scattered far and wide abou* 



WESTMINSTER ABBEY, 99 

the world; some tossing upon distant seas; some 
under arms in distant lands; some mingling in the 
busy intrigues of courts and cabinets ; all seeking to 
deserve one more distinction in this mansion of shad- 
owy honors, — the melancholy reward of a monu- 
ment. 

Two small aisles on each side of this chapel present 
a touching instance of the equality of the grave, which 
brings down the oppressor to a level with the op 
pressed, and mingles the dust of the bitterest enemies 
together. In one is the sepulchre of the haughty 
Elizabeth; in the other is that of her victim, the 
lovely and unfortunate Mary. Not an hour in the 
day, but some ejaculation of pity is uttered over the 
fate of the latter, mingled with indignation at her 
oppressor. The walls of Elizabeth's sepulchre con- 
tinually echo with the sighs of sympathy heaved at 
the grave of her rival. 

A peculiar melancholy reigns over the aisle where 
Mary lies buried. The light struggles dimly through 
v/indows darkened by dust. The greater part of the 
place is in deep shadow, and the walls are stained and 
tinted by time and weather. A marble figure of 
Mary is stretched upon the tomb, round which is an 
iron railing, much corroded, bearing her national em- 
blem, the thistle. I was weary with wandering, and 
sat down to rest myself by the monument, revolving 
in my mind the checkered and disastrous story of poor 
Mary. 

The sound of casual footsteps had ceased from the 
abbey. I could only hear, now and then, the distant 
voice of the priest repeating the evening service, and 
jhe faint responses of the choir; these paused for a 
time, and all was hushed. The stillness, the desertion 



100 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

and obscurity that were gradually prevailing around 
gave a deeper and more solemn interest to the place 

For iu the silent grave no conversation, 

No joyful tread of friends, no voice of lovers, 

No careful father's counsel — nothing 's heard, 

For nothing is, but all oblivion, 

Dust, and an endless darkness. 

Suddenly the notes of the deep-laboring orgaij 
burst upon the ear, falling with doubled and redou° 
bled intensity, and rolling, as it were, huge billows 
of sound. How well do their volume and grandeur 
accord with this mighty building ! With what pomp 
do they swell through its vast vaults, and breathe 
their awful harmony through these caves of death, and 
make the silent sepulchre vocal ! — And now they 
rise in triumphant acclamation, heaving higher and 
higher their accordant notes, and piling sound on 
sound. — And now they pause, and the soft voices of 
the choir break out into sweet gushes of melody; they 
soar aloft, and warble along the roof, and seem to 
play about these lofty vaults like the pure airs of 
heaven. Again the pealing organ heaves its thrilling 
thunders, compressing air into music, and rolling it 
forth upon the soul. What long-drawn cadences ! 
What solemn sweeping concords ! It grows more and 
more dense and powerful — it fills the vast pile, and 
seems to jar the very walls — the ear is stunned — th€ 
senses are overwhelmed. And now it is winding up 
in full jubilee — it is rising from the earth to heaven 
— the very soul seems rapt away, and floated upwards 
on this swelling tide of harmony ! 

I sat for some time lost in that kind of reverie 
which a strain of music is apt sometimes to inspire; 
the shadows of evening were gradually thicker inp' 



WESTMINSTER ABBEY, 101 

around me ; the monuments began to cast deeper and 
deeper gloom ; and the distant clock again gave tokec 
of the slowly waning day. 

I rose, and prepared to leave the abbey. As I de- 
scended the flight of steps which lead into the body of 
the building, my eye was caught by the shrine of Ed- 
ward the Confessor, and I ascended the small staircase 
that conducts to it, to take from thence a general sur- 
vey of this wilderness of tombs. The shrine is ele- 
vated upon a kind of platform, and close around it are 
the sepulchres of various kings and queens. From 
this eminence the eye looks down between pillars and 
funeral trophies to the chapels and chambers below, 
crowded with tombs; where warriors, prelates, cour- 
tiers, and statesmen, lie mouldering in their "beds 
of darkness." Close by me stood the great chair of 
coronation, 1 rudely carved of oak, in the barbarous 
taste of a remote and Gothic age. The scene seemed 
almost as if contrived, with theatrical artifice, to pro- 
duce an effect upon the beholder. Here was a tyfie 
of the beginning and the end of human pomp and 
power ; here it was literally but a step from the throne 
to the sepulchre. Would not one think that these in- 
congruous mementos had been gathered together as a 
lesson to living greatness? — to show it, even in the 
moment of its proudest exaltation, the neglect and 
dishonor to which it must soon arrive ; how soon that 
crown which encircles its brow must pass away, and 
it must lie down in the dust and disgraces of the tomb, 
and be trampled upon by the feet of the meanest of 

1 A chair of oak made by Edward I., in which all the English 
sovereigns since his time have sat to be crowned. It is said to 
have been carried from the abbey but once, — when Cromwell 
was made Lord Protector in a formal way in Westminster Halt 



102 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

the multitudec For, strange to tell, even the grave is 
here no longer a sanctuary. There is a shocking 
levity in some natures, which leads them to sport with 
awful and hallowed things ; and there are base minds 
which delight to revenge on the illustrious dead the 
abject homage and grovelling servility which they pay 
^o the living. The coffin of Edward the Confessor 
5ias been broken open, and his remains despoiled of 
their funereal ornaments ; the sceptre has been stolen 
from the hand of the imperious Elizabeth, and the 
effigy of Henry the Fifth lies headless. Not a royal 
monument but bears some proof how false and fugi- 
tive is the homage of mankind. Some are plundered, 
some mutilated; some covered with ribaldry and 
insult, — all more or less outraged and dishonored ! 

The last beams of day were now faintly streaming 
through the painted windows in the high vaidts above 
me; the lower parts of the abbey were already 
wrapped in the obscurity of twilight. The chapels and 
aisles grew darker and darker. The effigies of the 
kings faded into shadows ; the marble figures of the 
monuments assumed strange shapes in the uncertain 
light ; the evening breeze crept through the aisles like 
the cold breath of the grave ; and even the distant 
footfall of a verger, traversing the Poets' Corner, had 
something strange and dreary in its sound. I slowly 
retraced my morning's walk, and as I passed out at 
the portal of the cloisters, the door, closing with a jar- 
ring noise behind me, filled the whole building with 
echoes. 

I endeavored to form some arrangement in my mind 
of the objects I had been contemplating, but found 
they were already falling into indistinctness and 
confusion. Names, inscriptions, trophies, had all 



WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 103 

become confounded in my recollection, though I had 
scarcely taken my foot from off the threshold. What, 
thought I, is this vast assemblage of sepulchres but 
a treasury of humiliation ; a huge pile of reiterated 
homilies on the emptiness of renown and the cer- 
tainty of oblivion! It is, indeed, the empire of 
Death; his great shadowy palace, where he sits in 
state, mocking at the relics of human glory, and 
spreading dust and f orgetf ulness on the monuments of 
princes. How idle a boast, after all, is the immor- 
tality of a name ! Time is ever silently turning over 
his pages ; we are too much engrossed by the story of 
the present, to think of the characters and anecdotes 
that gave interest to the past ; and each age is a 
volume thrown aside to be speedily forgotten. The 
idol of to-day pushes the hero of yesterday out of 
our recollection; and will, in turn, be supplanted by 
his successor of to-morrow. ''Our fathers," says Sir 
Thomas Browne,^ "find their graves in our short mem- 
ories, and sadly tell us how we may be buried in our 
survivors." History fades into fable; fact becomes 
clouded with doubt and controversy; the mscription 
moulders from the tablet; the statue falls from the 
pedestal. Columns, arches, pyramids, what are they 
but heaps of sand; and their epitaphs but characters 
written in the dust ? What is the security of a tomb, 
or the perpetuity of an embalmment ? The remains 
of Alexander the Great have been scattered to the 
wind, and his empty sarcophagus is now the mere 
curiosity of a museum. "The Egyptian mummies, 
which Cambyses ^ or time hath spared, avarice now 

1 A merchant's son, born in London in 1605, and knighted by 
Charles II. in 1671. His Religio Medici (The Religion of a Phy. 
sician) is his ablest and best known work. 

* This Persian king conquered Egypt 525 B. a 



104 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

eonsumeth; Mizraim^ cures wounds, and Pharaoh is 
sold for balsams."^ 

What, then, is to insure this pile, which now towers 
above me, from sharing the fate of mightier mauso- 
leums ? The time must come when its gilded vaults, 
which now spring so loftily, shall lie in rubbish be*- 
aeath the feet ; when, instead of the sound of melody 
and praise, the wind shall whistle through the broken 
arches, and the owl hoot from the shattered tower; 
when the garish sunbeam shall break into these 
gloomy mansions of death, and the ivy twine round 
tiie fallen column, and the fox-glove hang its blos- 
soms about the nameless urn, as if in mockery of the 
dead. Thus man passes away; his name perishes 
from record and recollection; his history is as a tale 
that is told, and his very monument becomes a ruin. 

" An ancient name of Egypt, but used here for the earliest 
rulers taken as a bodv. In like manner Pharaoh, which is used 
as the title of a sovereign very much like the name of Czar or 
Sultan, is put collectively for such rulers as are not included 
binder Mizraim. 

^ Quoted from Sir Thomas Browne. 



THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE. lOS 

THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE, 
A COLLOQUY IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY 

I know that all beneath the moon decays, 
And what by mortals in this world is brought, 
In time's great period shall return to nought. 

I know that all the muse's heavenly lays, 
With toil of sprite which are so dearly bought, 
As idle sounds, of few or none are sought, 

That there is nothing lighter than mere praise. 

Dbummond op Hawthornden.J 

There are certain half-dreaming moods of mind, 
in which we naturally steal away from noise and glare, 
and seek some quiet haunt, where we may indulge our 
reveries and build our air castles undisturbed. In such 
a mood I was loitering about the old gray cloisters of 
Westminster Abbey, enjoying that luxury of wander- 
ing thought which one is apt to dignify with the name 
of reflection ; when suddenly an interruption of mad- 
cap boys from Westminster School, playing at foot- 
ball, broke in upon the monastic stillness of the place, 
making the vaulted passages and mouldering tombs 
echo with their merriment. I sought to take refuge 
from their noise by penetrating still deeper into the 
solitudes of the pile, and applied to one of the ver- 
gers for admission to the library. He conducted me 
through a portal rich with the crumbling sculpture 
of former ages, which opened upon a gloomy passage 
leading to the chapter-house and the chamber in which 
Doomsday Book^ is deposited. Just within the passage 

^ William Drummond, a Scottish poet of some celebrity, was 
born at Hawthornden, near Edinburgh, in 1585, and died in 
1649. 

2 Doomsday (or Domesday) Book, so called because its au- 
thority was final, contains a summary of the results of a sta* 



106 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

is a small door on the left. To this the verger applied 
a key; it was double locked, and opened with some 
difficulty, as if seldom used. We now ascended a 
dark narrow staircase, and, passing through a second 
door, entered the library. 

I found myself in a lofty antique hall, the roof 
i^pported by massive joists of old English oak. It 
was soberly lighted by a row of Gothic windows at a 
considerable height from the floor, and which ap- 
parently opened upon the roofs of the cloisters. An 
ancient picture of some reverend dignitary of the church 
in his robes hung over the fireplace. Around the hall 
and in a small gallery were the books, arranged in 
carved oaken cases. They consisted principally of 
old polemical writers, and were much more worn by 
time than use. In the centre of the library was a 
solitary table with two or three books on it, an ink- 
stand without ink, and a few pens parched by long 
disuse. The place seemed fitted for quiet study and 
profound meditation. It was buried deep among the 
massive walls of the abbey, and shut up from the 
tumult of the world. I could only hear now and then 
the shouts of the school-boys faintly swelling from the 
cloisters, and the sound of a bell tolling for prayerSc 
echoing soberly along the roofs of the abbey. By 
degrees the shouts of merriment grew fainter anJ 
fainter, and at length died away ; the bell ceased t( 
toll, and a profound silence reigned through the dusky 
hall. 

I had taken down a little thick quarto, curiously 
bound in parchment, with brass clasps, and seated 

tistical survey of England, made under Williair. the Conqueror 
in 1085-86. It records the ownership, extent, anc' value of land, 
the number of tenants, the amount of live stock, ate 



THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE, 101 

myself at the table in a venerable elbow-ehair. In 
stead of reading, however, I was beguiled by the sol 
emn monastic air and lifeless quiet of the place int( 
a train of musing. As I looked around upon the old 
volumes in their mouldering covers, thus ranged on the 
shelves, and apparently never disturbed in their re- 
pose, I could not but consider the library a kind of 
literary catacomb, where authors, like mummies, are 
piously entombed, and left to blacken and moulder in 
dusty oblivion. 

How much, thought I, has each of these volumes^ 
now thrust aside with such indifference, cost some 
aching head ! how many weary days ! how many sleep- 
less nights ! How have their authors buried them- 
selves in the solitude of cells and cloisters ; shut 
themselves up from the face of man, and the stil! 
more blessed face of nature ; and devoted themselves 
to painful research and intense reflection ! And all for 
what ? to occupy an inch of dusty shelf — to have the 
title of their works read now and then in a future 
age, by some drowsy churchman or casual straggler 
like myself; and in another age to be lost, even to 
remembrance. Such is the amount of this boasted 
immortality. A mere temporary rumor, a local sound ; 
like the tone of that bell which has just tolled among 
these towers, filling the ear for a moment — lingering 
transiently in echo — and then passing away like a 
thing that was not ! 

While I sat half murmuring, half meditating these 
unprofitable speculations, with my head resting on my 
hand, I was thrumming with the other hand upon the 
quarto, until I accidentally loosened the clasps ; when, 
to my utter astonishment, the little book gave two 
or three yawns, like one awaking from a deep sleep ; 



108 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

then a husky hem ; and at length began to talk. At 
tirst its voice was very hoarse and broken, being much 
troubled by a cobweb which some studious spider had 
woven across it ; and having probably contracted a 
cold from long exposure to the chills and damps of the 
abbey. In a short time, however, it became more dis- 
tinct, and I soon found it an exceedingly fluent 
conversable little tome. Its language, to be sure, was 
rather quaint and obsolete, and its pronunciation w^hat, 
in the present day, would be deemed barbarous ; but 
I shall endeavor, as far as I am able, to render it in 
modern parlance. 

It began wdth railings about the neglect of the 
world — about merit being suffered to languish in 
obscurity, and other such commonplace topics of lit- 
^ary repining, and complained bitterly that it had not 
been opened for more than two centuries ; that the 
dean only looked now and then into the library, 
sometimes took dow^i a volume or two, trifled with 
them for a few moments, and then returned them to 
their shelves- " What a plague do they mean," said 
the little quarto, which I began to perceive was some- 
what choleric, ^' what a plague do they mean by keep- 
ing several thousand volumes of us shut up here, and 
watched by a set of old vergers, like so many beauties 
in a harem, merely to be looked at now and then by 
the dean ? Books were w^ritten to give pleasure and 
to be enjoyed ; and I would have a rule passed that 
the dean sliould pay each of us a visit at least once a 
jrear ; or if he is not equal to the task, let them once 
in a while turn loose the whole school of Westminster 
among us, that at any rate we may now and then have 
a.n airing." 

"Softly, my worthy friend," replied I, •' you are not 



THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE. 109 

aware how much better you are off than most books 
of your generation. By being stored away in this 
ancient library, you are like the treasured remains of 
those saints and monarchs which lie enshrined in the 
adjoining chapels ; while the remains of your contem 
porary mortals, left to the ordinary course of nature, 
have long since returned to dust." 

" Sir," said the little tome, ruffling his leaves and 
looking big, " I was written for all the world, not for 
the bookworms of an abbey. I was intended to circu- 
late from hand to hand, like other great contemporary 
works ; but here have I been clasped up for more than 
two centuries, and might have silently fallen a prey 
to these worms that are playing the very vengeance 
with my intestines, if you had not by chance given 
me an opportunity of uttering a few last words before 
I go to pieces." 

" My good friend," rejoined I, " had you been left 
to the circulation of which you speak, you would long 
ere this have been no more. To judge from your physi- 
ognomy, you are now well stricken in years : very fe^ 
of your contemporaries can be at present in existence ; 
and those few owe their longevity to being immured 
like yourself in old libraries ; which, suffer me to add. 
instead of likening to harems, you might more pro- 
perly and gratefully have compared to those infirmaries 
attached to religious establishments, for the benefit of 
the old and decrepit, and where, by quiet fostering 
and no employment, they often endure to an amaz* 
ingly good-for-nothing old age. You talk of your con- 
temporaries as if in circulation — where do we meet 
with their works ? what do we hear of Robert Gros- 
teste,^ of Lincoln ? No one could have toiled harder 

^ Robert Grosseteste (as the name is generally spelled) wa« 
elected Bishop of Lincoln in 1235, and died in 1253. 



110 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

than he for immortality. He is said to have written 
nearly two hundred volumes. He built, as it were, a 
pyramid of books to perpetuate his name : but, alas ! 
the pyramid has long since fallen, and only a few 
fragments are scattered in various libraries, where 
they are scarcely disturbed even by the antiquarian. 
What do we hear of Giraldus Cambrensis,^ the histo- 
rian, antiquary, philosopher, theologian, and poet ? 
He declined two bishoprics, that he might shut him- 
self up and write for posterity ; but posterity never 
inquires after his labors. What of Henry of Hunt- 
ingdon, who, besides a learned history of England, 
wrote a treatise on the contempt of the world, which 
the world has revenged by forgetting him ? What is 
quoted of Joseph of Exeter, styled the miracle of his 
age in classical composition ? Of his three great he- 
roic poems one is lost forever, excepting a mere frag- 
ment ; the others are known only to a few of the curi- 
ous in literature ; and as to his love verses and epi- 
grams, they have entirely disappeared. What is in 
current use of John Wallis, the Franciscan, who ac- 
quired the name of the tree of life? Of William of 
Malmesbury ; — of Simeon of Durham ; — of Benedict 
of Peterborough ; — of John Hanvill of St. Albans ; — 

of " 

" Prithee, friend," cried the quarto, in a testy tone, 
*' how old do you think me ? You are talking of au- 
thors that lived long before my time, and wrote either 
in Latm or French, so that they in a manner expatri- 
ated themselves, and deserved to be forgotten ; ^ but 

^ Gerald de Barry, born in Wales about 1146, died about 
1220. All the other writers mentioned in the same paragraph 
belong to the twelfth century. 

*-* " In Latin and French hath many soueraine wittes liad 



THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE, 111 

I, sir, was ushered into the world from the press of 
the renowned Wynkin de Worde.^ I was written in 
my own native tongue, at a time when the language 
had become fixed; and indeed I was considered a 
model of pure and elegant English." 

(I should observe that these remarks were couched 
in such intolerably antiquated terms, that I have 
had infinite difficulty in rendering them into modern 
phraseology.) 

" I cry your mercy," said I, " for mistaking your 
age ; but it matters little : almost all the writers of 
your time have likewise passed into forgetf ulness ; 
and De Worde's publications are mere literary rari- 
ties among book-collectors. The purity and stability 
of language, too, on which you found your claims to 
perpetuity, have been the fallacious dependence of au- 
thors of every age, even back to the times of the worthy 
Robert of Gloucester, who wrote his history in rhymes 
of mongrel Saxon.^ Even now many talk of Spenser's 

great delyte to endite, and have many noble thinges fnlfilde, 
but certes there ben some that speaken their poisye in French, 
of which speche the Frenchmen have as good a fantasye as 
we have in hearying of Frenchmen's Englishe." — (Quoted by 
Irving from Chaucer's Testament of Love.) 

^ An English printer who was an assistant, and afterward the 
successor, of William Caxton. He died about 1535. 

2 Holinshed, in his Chronicle, observes, " Afterwards, also, by 
deligent travell of Geffry Chaucer and of John Gowre, in the time 
of Richard the Second, and after them of John Scogan and John 
Lydgate, monke of Berrie, our said toong was brought to an 
excellent passe, notwithstanding that it never came unto the 
type of perfection until the time of Queen Elizabeth, wherein 
John Jewell, Bishop of Sarum, John Fox, and sundrie learned 
and excellent writers, have fully accomplished the ornature of 
the same, to their great praise and immortal commendation." — ^ 
W. L 



112 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

* well of pure English undefiled,' ^ as if the language 
ever sprang from a well or fountain-head, and was 
not rather a mere confluence of various tongues, per- 
petually subject to changes and intermixtures. It is 
this which has made English literature so extremely 
mutable, and the reputation built upon it so fleeting. 
Unless thought can be committed to something more 
permanent and unchangeable than such a medium, 
even thought must share the fate of everything else, 
and fall into decay. This should serve as a check 
upon the vanity and exultation of the most populate 
writer. He finds the language in which he has em- 
barked his fame gradually altering, and subject to the 
dilapidations of time and the caprice of fashion. He 
looks back and beholds the early authors of his coun- 
try, once the favorites of their day, supplanted by 
modern writers. A few short ages have covered them 
with obscurity, and their merits can only be relished 
by the quaint taste of the bookworm. And such, he 
anticipates, will be the fate of his own work, which, 
however it may be admired in its day, and held up as 
a model of purity, will in the course of years grow 
antiquated and obsolete ; until it shall become almost 
as unintelligible in its native land as an Egyptian 
obelisk, or one of those Runic inscriptions said to exist 
in the deserts of Tartary. I declare," added I, with 
some emotion, " when I contemplate a modern library, 
filled with new works, in all the bravery of rich gild- 
ing and binding, I feel disposed to sit down and weep ; 
like the good Xerxes, when he surveyed his army. 

' The phrase here quoted, inexactly, comes from Spenser'^ 
Faerie Queene, Book IV, canto ii, stanza 32 : — 

** Dan Chancer, well of English undefyled, 
On Fame's eternall beadroll worthie to be fyled." 



THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE, 118 

pranked out in all the splendor of military array, and 
reflected that in one hundred years not one of them 
would be in existence ! " 

" Ah," said the little quarto, with a heavy sigh, " I 
see how it is ; these modern scribblers have super- 
seded all the good old authors. I suppose nothing is 
read nowadays but Sir Philip Sidney's ' Arcadia,' 
Saekville's stately plays and 'Mirror for Magis^ 
trates,' or the finespun euphuisms of the ' unparal- 
leled John Lyly.' " i 

" There you are again mistaken," said I ; " the 
writers whom you suppose in vogue, because they 
happened to be so when you were last in circulation, 
Lave long since had their day. Sir Philip Sidney's 
' Arcadia,' the immortality of which was so fondly 
predicted by his admirers,^ and which, in truth, is full 
of noble thoughts, delicate images, and graceful turns 
of language, is now scarcely ever mentioned. Sack- 
ville has strutted into obscurity ; and even Lyly, 

^ Sir Philip Sidney, an English author and general, was born 
in 1554, and mortally wounded at the battle of Zutphen, in 
1586. His Arcadia, a pastoral romance, was long very popular. 
Thomas Sackville, Earl of Dorset, was born in 1536, and died 
at London in 1608. For Lyly, see page 1. 

2 " Live ever sweete booke ; the simple image of his gentle 
witt, and the golden-pillar of his noble courage ; and ever notify 
unto the world that thy writer was the secretary of eloquence, 
the breath of the muses, the honey-bee of the daintyest flowers 
of witt and arte, the pith of morale and intellectual virtues, thf 
arme of Bellona in the field, the tonge of Suada in the chamber 
the sprite of Practise in esse, and the paragon of excellency ifl 
print." — (Quoted by Irving from Harvey's Piercers Superero- 
gation,) 

Piercers Supererogation was written in 1593 by Gabriel Ha^ 
?ey, as part of a long and bitter controversy with Thomas Nash 
the dramatist 



114 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

though his writings were once the delight of a court, 
and apparently perpetuated by a proverb, is now 
scarcely known even by name. A whole crowd of 
authors who wrote and wrangled at the time have 
likewise gone down, with all their writings and their 
controversies. Wave after wave of succeeding litera- 
ture has rolled over them, until they are buried so 
deep, that it is only now and then that some industri- 
ous diver after fragments of antiquity brings up a 
specimen for the gratification of the curious. 

" For my part," I continued, '' I consider this mu- 
tability of language a wise precaution of Providence 
for the benefit of the world at large, and of authors 
in particular. To reason from analogy, we daily be- 
hold the varied and beautiful tribes of vegetables 
springing up, flourishing, adorning the fields for a 
short time, and then fading into dust, to make way 
for their successors. Were not this the case, the 
fecundity of nature would be a grievance instead of a 
blessing. The earth would groan with rank and ex- 
cessive vegetation, and its surface become a tangled 
wilderness. In like manner the works of genius and 
learning decline, and make way for subsequent pro- 
ductions. Language gradually varies, and with it fade 
away the writings of authors who have flourished their 
allotted time ; otherwise, the creative powers of genius 
would overstock the world, and the mind would be 
completely bewildered in the endless mazes of litera- 
ture. Formerly there were some restraints on this ex- 
cessive multiplication. Works had to be transcribed 
by hand, which was a slow and laborious operation ; 
they were written either on parchment, which was ex« 
pensive, so that one work was often erased to make 
«ray for another i or on papyrus, which was fragile 



THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE. 115 

and extremely perishable. Authorship was a limited 
and unprofitable craft, pursued chiefly by monks in 
the leisure and solitude of their cloisters. The accu- 
mulation of manuscripts was slow and costly, and 
confined almost entirely to monasteries. To these 
circumstances it may, in some measure, be owing that 
we have not been inundated by the intellect of an- 
tiquity ; that the fountains of thought have not been 
broken up, and modern genius drowned in the deluge. 
But the inventions of paper and the press have put 
an end to all these restraints. They have made every 
one a writer, and enabled every mind to pour itself 
into print, and diffuse itself over the whole intellectual 
world. The consequences are alarming. The stream 
of literature has swollen into a torrent — augmented 
into a river — expanded into a sea. A few centuries 
since, five or six hundred manuscripts constituted a 
great library ; but what would you say to libraries 
such as actually exist, containing three or four hun- 
dred thousand volumes ; legions of authors at the 
same time busy ; and the press going on with fear- 
fully increasing activity, to double and quadruple the 
number? Unless some unforeseen mortality should 
break out among the progeny of the muse, now that 
she has become so prolific, I tremble for posterity. I 
fear the mere fluctuation of language will not be sufiB* 
cient. Criticism may do much. It increases with the 
increase of literature, and resembles one of those salu- 
tary checks on population spoken of by economists. 
All possible encouragement, therefore, should be given 
to the growth of critics, good or bad. But I fear all 
will be in vain ; let criticism do what it may, writ- 
ers will write, printers will print, and the world will 
inevitably be overstocked with good books. It will 



116 WASHING'iON IRVING. 

soon be the employment of a lifetime merely to learn 
their names. Many a man of passable information, 
at the present day, reads scarcely anything but reviews ; 
and before long a man of erudition will be little bet- 
ter than a mere walking catalogue/' 

" My very good sir," said the little quarto, yawning 
most drearily in my face, " excuse my interrupting 
you, but I perceive you are rather given to prose. I 
would ask the fate of an author who was making some 
noise just as I left the world. His reputation, how- 
ever, was considered quite temporary. The learned 
shook their heads at him, for he was a poor half-edu- 
cated varlet, that knew little of Latin, and nothing of 
Greek,^ and had been obliged to run the country for 
deer-stealing. I think his name was Shakspeare. I 
presume he soon sunk into oblivion." 

" On the contrary," said I, '' it is owing to that very 
man that the literature of his period has experienced 
a duration beyond the ordinary term of English litera- 
ture. There rise authors now and then, who seem 
proof against the mutability of language, because they 
have rooted themselves in the unchanging principles 
of human nature. They are like gigantic trees that 
we sometimes see on the banks of a stream ; which 
by their vast and deep roots, penetrating through the 
mere surface, and laying hold on the very foundations 
of the earth, preserve the soil around them from being 
swept away by the ever-flowing current, and hold up 
many a neighboring plant, and, perhaps, worthless 
weed, to perpetuity. Such is the case with Shak- 
speare, whom we behold defying the encroachments of 

' The reference is to Ben Jonson's line, in his poem, To the 
Memory of my beloved Master William Shakspeare • — 
^' And though thou hadst small Latin and lesu Greek.'' 



THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE. 117 

time, retaining in modern use the language and litera- 
ture of his day, and giving duration to many an indif- 
ferent author, merely from having flourished in his 
vicinity. But even he, I grieve to say, is gradually 
assuming the tint of age, and his whole form is over- 
run by a profusion of commentators, who, like clam 
bering vines and creepers, almost bury the noble plant 
that upholds them." 

Here the little quarto began to heave his sides and 
chuckle, until at length he broke out in a plethoric fit 
of laughter that had well-nigh choked him, by reason 
of his excessive corpulency. '* Mighty well ! " cried 
he, as soon as he could recover breath, " mighty well ^ 
and so you would persuade me that the literature oi 
an age is to be perpetuated by a vagabond deer-stealer 1 
by a man without learning ; by a poet, forsooth — a 
poet ! " And here he wheezed forth another fit of 
laughter. 

I confess that I felt somewhat nettled at this rude- 
ness, which, however, I pardoned on account of his 
having fl^ourished in a less polished age. I deter- 
mined, nevertheless, not to give up my point. 

"Yes," resumed I, positively, "a poet; for of 
all writers he has the best chance for immortality. 
Others may write from the head, but he writes from 
the heart, and the heart will always understand him. 
He is the faithful portrayer of nature, whose features 
are always the same, and always interesting. Prose 
writers are voluminous and unwieldy ; their pages are 
crowded with commonplaces, and their thoughts ex- 
panded into tediousness. But with the true poet 
everything is terse, touching, or brilliant. He gives 
the choicest thoughts in the choicest language. He 
illustrates them by everything that he sees most 



118 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

striking in nature and art. He enriches them by pic 
tures of human life, such as it is passing before him. 
His writings, therefore, contain the spirit, the aroma, 
if I may use the phrase, of the age in which he lives. 
They are caskets which inclose within a small com- 
pass the wealth of the language — its family jewels^ 
which are thus transmitted in a portable form to pos° 
terity. The setting may occasionally be antiquated, 
and require now and then to be renewed, as in the 
case of Chaucer ; but the brilliancy and intrinsic 
value of the gems continue unaltered. Cast a look 
back over the long reach of literary history. What 
vast valleys of dullness, filled with monkish legends 
and academical controversies ! what bogs of theologi- 
cal speculations ! what dreary wastes of metaphysics I 
Here and there only do we behold the heaven-illumiv 
nated bards, elevated like beacons on their widely 
separate heights, to transmit the pure light of poetical 
intelligence from age to age." ^ 

I was just about to launch forth into eulogiums upon 
the poets of the day, when the sudden opening of the 

1 Thorow earth and waters deepe, 

The pen by skill doth passe : 
And featly nyps the worldes abuse, 

And shoes us in a glasse 
The vertu aud the vice 

Of every wight alyve ; 
The honey comb that bee doth make 

Is not so sweet in hyve, 
As are the golden leves 

That drop from poet's head ! 
Which doth surmount our common talke 

As farre as dross doth lead. 

(Quoted by Irving from Churchyard.) 

[Thomas Churchyard, an English poet and soldier, was born 
about 1520, and died in 1004.] 



THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE. 119 

door caused me to turn my head. It was the verger, 
who came to inform me that it was time to close the 
library. I sought to have a parting word with the 
quarto, but the worthy little tome was silent ; the 
clasps were closed : and it looked perfectly uncon- 
scious of all that had passed. I have been to the 
library two or three times since, and have endeavored 
to draw it into further conversation, but in vain ; and 
whether all this rambling colloquy actually took place, 
or whether it was another of those odd day-dreams to 
which I am subject, I have never to this moment been 
able to discover. 



120 WASHINGTON IRVING 



STRATFORD -ON- AVON. 

•*Thou soft-flowing Avon, by thy silver stream 
Of things more than mortal sweet Shakspeare would dream, 
The fairies by moonlight dance round his green bed, 
For hallow'd the turf is which pillow'd his head." 

Gabbics. 

To a homeless man, who has no spot on this wide 
world which he can truly call his own, there is a 
momentary feeling of something like independence 
and territorial consequence when, after a weary day's 
travel, he kicks off his boots, thrusts his feet into 
slippers, and stretches himself before an inn fire. 
Let the world without go as it may; let kingdoms 
rise or fall, so long as he has the wherewithal to pay 
his bill, he is, foi' the time being, the very monarch 
of all he surveys. The armchair is his throne, the 
poker his sceptre, and the little parlor, some twelve 
feet square, his undisputed empire.^ It is a morsel 
of certainty, snatched from the midst of the uncer-^ 
tainties of life ; it is a sunny moment gleaming out 
kindly on a cloudy day: and he who has advanced 
some way on the pilgrimage of existence, knows the 
importance of husbanding even morsels and moments 
of enjoyment. " Shall I not take mine ease in mine 

* Visitors are still shown the chair in which Irving sat, at the 
Red Horse Hotel, and the poker with which he poked the fire ! 
Irving writes to his sister on the occasion of his second visit, in 
1832 : " We were quartered at the little inn of the Red Horse, 
where I found the same obliging little landlady that kept it at the 
time of the visit [1815] recorded in the Sketch-Book. You cannot 
imagine what a fuss the little woman made when she found out 
who I was. She showed me the room I had occupiedr i« which 
she had hung up my engraved likeness, and she produced a poker 
which was locked up in the archives of her house, on which sh6 
(&ad caused to be engraved * Geoffrey Crayon's sceptre/ " 



STRA TFORD-ON-A VON, 121 

inn ? " thought I, as I gave the fire a stir, lolled back 
in my elbow-chair, and cast a complacent look about 
the little parlor of the Ked Horse, at Stratford-on- 
Avon. 

The words of sweet Shakspeare were just passing 
through my mind as the clock struck midnight from 
the tower of the church in which he lies buriedc 
There was a gentle tap at the door, and a pretty 
chambermaid, putting in her smiling face, inquired, 
with a hesitating air, whether I had rung. I under- 
stood it as a modest hint that it was time to retire. 
My dream of absolute dominion was at an end; so 
abdicating my throne, like a prudent potentate, to 
avoid being deposed, and putting the Stratford Guide- 
Book under my arm, as a pillow companion, I went 
to bed, and dreamt all night of Shakspeare, the 
pbilee,^ and David Garrick. 

The next morning was one of those quickening 
mornings which we sometimes have in early spring, 
for it was about the middle of March. The chills 
of a long winter had suddenly given way ; the north 
wind had spent its last gasp ; and a mild air came 
stealing from the west, breathing the breath of life 
into nature, and wooing every bud and flower to 
burst forth into fragrance and beauty. 

I had come to Stratford on a poetical pilgrimagOc 
My first visit was to the house where Shakspeare 
was born,2 ^j^^ where, according to tradition, he was 
brought up to his father's craft of wool-combing. It 
is a small, mean-looking edifice of wood and plaster, 

1 Garrick originated the jubilee which was held in 1769, and 
;^hich lasted three days. 

2 This house became the property of the British nation ia 
18^7. 



122 WASHINCTON IRVING, 

a true nestling-place of genius, which seemi* tc de 
light in hatching its offspring in by-corners. The 
walls of its squalid chambers are covered with names 
and inscriptions in every language, by pilgrims of all 
nations, ranks, and conditions, from the prince to the 
peasant, and present a simple but striking instance 
of the spontaneous and universal homage of mankind 
to the great poet of nature.^ 

The house is shown by a garrulous old lady, in 
a frosty red face, lighted up by a cold blue anxious 
eye, and garnished with artificial locks of flaxen hair, 
curling from under an exceedingly dirty cap. She 
was peculiarly assiduous in exhibiting the relics with 
which this, like all other celebrated shrines, abounds. 
There was the shattered stock of the very match-lock 
with which Shakspeare shot the deer, on his poaching 
exploits. There, too, was his tobacco-box, which 
proves that he was a rival smoker of Sir AValter 
Raleigh ^ the sword, also, with which he played 
Hamlet; and the identical lantern with which Friar 
Laurence discovered Romeo and Juliet at the tomb ! 
There was an ample supply, also, of Shakspeare'a 
mulberry-tree, which seems to have as extraordinary 
powers of self-multiplication as the wood of the true 
cross, of which there is enough extant to build a ship 
of the line. 

The most favorite object of curiosity, however, is 
Shakspeare's chair. It stands in the chimney nook 

^ Irving added his name to the motley collection, writing 
these four lines, and signing them, " Washington Irving. Seiy 
ond visit, October, 1821." 

" Of mighty Shakspeare's birth the room we see. 
That where he died in vain to find we try ; 
Uaelesa the search — for all immortal he. 
And those who are immortal never die." 



STRA TFORD-ON-A VON. 123 

of a small gloomy chamber, just behind what was his 
father's shop. Here he may many a time have sat 
when a boy, watching the slowly revolving spit with 
all the longing of an urchin ; or of an evening listen- 
ing to the cronies and gossips of Stratford dealing 
forth churchyard tales and legendary anecdotes of 
the troublesome times of England. In this chair it 
is the custom of every one that visits the house to 
sit : whether this be done with the hope of imbibing 
any of the inspiration of the bard I am at a loss to 
say ; I merely mention the fact ; and mine hostess 
privately assured me, that, though built of solid oak, 
such was the fervent zeal of devotees, the chair had 
to be new bottomed at least once in three years. It 
is worthy of notice also, in the history of this ex- 
traordinary chair, that it partakes something of the 
volatile nature of the Santa Casa of Loretto,^ or the 
flying chair of the Arabian enchanter ; for though 
sold some few years since to a northern princess, yet, 
strange to tell, it has found its way back again to the 
old chimney corner. 

I am always of easy faith in such matters, and 
am ever willing to be deceived, where the deceit is 
pleasant and costs nothing. I am therefore a ready 
believer in relics, legends, and local anecdotes of gob= 
lins and great men ; and would advise all travellers 
who travel for their gratification to be the same. 
What is it to us, whether these stories be true or 
false, so long as we can persuade ourselves into the 
belief of them, and enjoy all the charm of the reality ? 
There is nothing like resolute good-himiored credulity 

1 The legend runs that the house in which the Virgin was 
born was carried by angels from Nazareth, in 1295, tc Lorettc^ 
m Italy. 



124 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

in these matters ; and on this occasion I went even so 
far as willingly to believe the claims of mine hostess to 
a lineal descent from the poet, when, luckily, for my 
faith, she put into my hands a play of her own com- 
position, which set all belief in her consanguinity at 
defiance. 

From the birthplace of Shakspeare a few paces 
brought me to his grave. He lies buried in the chan» 
eel of the parish church, a large and venerable pile^ 
mouldering with age, but richly ornamented. It 
stands on the banks of the Avon, on an embowered 
point, and separated by adjoining gardens from the 
suburbs of the town. Its situation is quiet and re- 
tired: the river runs murmuring at the foot of the 
churchyard, and the elms which grow upon its banks 
droop their branches into its clear bosom. An avenue 
of limes, the boughs of which are curiously interlaced, 
so as to form in summer an arched way of foliage, 
leads up from the gate of the yard to the church 
porch. The graves are overgrown with grass ; the 
gray tombstones, some of them nearly sunk into the 
earth, are half covered with moss, which has likewise 
tinted the reverend old building. Small birds have 
built their nests among the cornices and fissures of 
the walls, and keep up a continual flutter and chirp- 
ing ; and rooks are sailing and cawing about its lofty 
gray spire. 

In the course of my rambles I met with the gray- 
headed sexton, Edmonds, and accompanied him home 
to get the key of the church. He had lived in Strat- 
ford, man and boy, for eighty years, and seemed still 
to consider himself a vigorous man, with the trivial 
exception that he had nearly lost the use of his legs 
for a few years past. His dwelling was a cottage, 



S TRA TFGRD-ON-A VON. 125 

looking out upon the Avon and its bordering mead- 
ows ; and was a picture of that neatness, order, and 
comfort, which pervade the humblest dwellings in this 
country. A low whitewashed room, with a stone 
floor carefully scrubbed, served for parlor, kitchen, 
and hall. Rows of pewter and earthen dishes glit- 
tered along the dresser. On an old oaken table, well 
rubbed and polished, lay the family Bible and prayer* 
book, and the drawer contained the family library, 
composed of about half a score of well-thumbed vol- 
umes. An ancient clock, that important article of 
cottage furniture, ticked on the opposite side of the 
room ; with a bright warming-pan hanging on one 
side of it, and the old man's horn-handled Sunday 
cane on the other. The fireplace, as usual, was wide 
and deep enough to admit a gossip knot within its 
jambs. In one corner sat the old man's granddaugh- 
ter sewing, a pretty blue-eyed girl, — and in the oppo- 
site corner was a superannuated crony, whom he ad- 
dressed by the name of John Ange, and who, I found, 
had been his companion from childhood. They had 
played together in infancy ; they had worked together 
in manhood ; they were now tottering about and gos- 
sipir y away the evening of life ; and in a short time 
they will probably be buried together in the neigh-' 
boring churchyard. It is not often that we see two 
streams of existence running thus evenly and tran-^ 
quilly side by side ; it is only in such quiet ''bosom 
scenes " of life that they are to be met with. 

I had hoped to gather some traditionary anecdotes 
of the bard from these ancient chroniclers ; but they 
had nothing new to impart. The long interval dur- 
ing which Shakspeare's v/ritings lay in comparative 
aeglect has spread its &had9w over his history ; and 



126 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

it is his good or evil lot that scarcely anything 
remains to his biographers but a scanty handful of 
conjectures. 

The sexton and his companion had been employed 
as carpenters on the preparations for the celebrated 
Stratford jubilee, and they remembered Garrick, the 
prime mover of the fete, who superintended the ar* 
rangements, and who, according to the sexton, was 
" a short punch man, very lively and bustling." John 
Ange had assisted also in cutting down Shakspeare's 
mulberry-tree, of which he had a morsel in his pocket 
for sale ; no doubt a sovereign quickener of literary 
conception. 

I was grieved to hear these two worthy wights 
speak very dubiously of the eloquent dame who shows 
the Shakspeare house. John Ange shook his head 
when I mentioned her valuable collection of relics, 
particularly her remains of the mulberry-tree ; and 
the old sexton even expressed a doubt as to Shak- 
speare having been born in her house. I soon dis- 
covered that he looked upon her mansion with an evil 
eye, as a rival to the poet's tomb ; the latter having 
comparatively but few visitors. Thus it is that histo- 
rians differ at the very outset, and mere pebbles make 
the stream of truth diverge into different channels 
even at the fountain head. 

We approached the church through the avenue of 
limes, and entered by a Gothic porch, highly orna- 
mented, with carved doors of massive oak. The in- 
terior is spacious, and the architecture and embellish 
ments superior to those of most country churches. 
There are several ancient monuments of nobility and 
gentry, over some of which hang funeral escutcheons, 
and banners dropping piecemeal from the walls. The 



STRA TFORD-ON-A VOjV. 127 

tomb of Shakspeare is in the chancel. The place is 
solemn and sepulchral. Tall elms wave before the 
pointed windows, and the Avon, which runs at a short 
distance from the walls, keeps up a low perpetual 
murmur. A flat stone marks the spot where the bard 
is buried. There are four lines inscribed on it, said 
to have been written by himself, and which have in 
them something extremely awful. If they are indeed 
his own, they show that solicitude about the quiet of 
the grave, which seems natural to fine sensibilities 
and thoughtful minds. 

"Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbcare 
To dig the dust enclosed here. 
Blessed be he that spares these stones, 
And curst be he that moves my bones." 

Just over the grave, in a niche of the wall, is a 
bust of Shakspeare, put up shortly after his death, 
and considered as a resemblance. The aspect is plea- 
sant and serene, with a finely arched forehead ; and I 
thought I could read in it clear indications of that 
cheerful, social disposition, by which he was as much 
characterized among his contemporaries as by the 
vastness of his genius. The inscription mentions his 
age at the time of his decease — fifty-three years ; an 
untimely death for the world : for what fruit might 
not have been expected from the golden autumn of 
such a mind, sheltered as it was from the stormy vi- 
cissitudes of life, and flourishing in the sunshine of 
popular and royal favor. 

The inscription on the tombstone has not been 
without its effect. It has prevented the removal of 
his remains from the bosom of his native place to 
Westminster Abbey, which was at one time contem- 



128 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

plated.i A few years since, also, as some laborers 
were digging to make an adjoining vault, the earth 
caved in, so as to leave a vacant space almost like an 
arch, through which one might have reached into his 
grave. No one, however, presumed to meddle with 
his remains so awfully guarded by a malediction ; and 
lest any of the idle or the curious, or any collector 
of relics, should be tempted to commit depreda* 
tions, the old sexton kept watch over the place for 
two days, until the vault was finished and the aper- 
ture closed again. He told me that he had made 
bold to look in at the hole, but could see neither coffin 
nor bones; nothing but dust. It was something, J 
thought, to have seen the dust of Shakspeare. 

Next to this grave are those of his wife, his favorite 
daughter, Mrs. Hall, and others of his family. On a 
tomb close by, also, is a full-length effigy of his old 
friend John Combe of usurious memory ; on whom 
he is said to have written a ludicrous epitaph. There 
are other monuments around, but the mind refuses to 
dwell on anything that is not connected with Shak- 
speare. His idea pervades the place ; the whole pile 
seems but as his mausoleum. The feelings, no longer 
checked and thwarted by doubt, here indulge in per- 
feet confidence : other traces of him may be false or 
dubious, but here is palpable evidence and absolute 
certainty. As I trod the sounding pavement, there 
was something intense and thrilling in the idea, that, 
in very truth, the remains of Shakspeare were moul- 
dering beneath my feet. It was a long time before 1 

1 The reader will find an interesting sketch by Hawthorne in 
Our Old Home, entitled "Recollections of a Gifted Woman,* 
which narrates one futile attempt to examine Shakspeare's 
grave. 



STRA TFORD-ON-A VON, 129 

could prevail upon myself to leave the place ; and as 
I passed through the churchyard, I plucked a branch 
from one of the yew-trees, the only relic that I have 
brought from Stratford. 

I had now visited the usual objects of a pilgrim's 
devotion, but I had a desire to see the old family seat 
of the Lucys, at Charlecot, and to ramble through 
the park where Shakspeare, in company with some 
of the roysters of Stratford, committed his youthful 
offence of deer-stealing. In this hare-brained exploit 
we are told that he was taken prisoner, and carried to 
the keeper's lodge, where he remained all night in 
doleful captivity. When brought into the presence 
of Sir Thomas Lucy, his treatment must have been 
galling and humiliating ; for it so wrought upon his 
spirit as to produce a rough pasquinade, which was 
affixed to the park gate at Charlecot.^ 

This flagitious attack upon the dignity of the 
knight so incensed him, that he applied to a lawyer 
at Warwick to put the severity of the laws in force 
against the rhyming deer-stalker. Shakspeare did 
not wait to brave the united puissance of a knight 
of the shire and a country attorney. He forthwith 
abandoned the pleasant banks of the Avon and his 
paternal trade ; wandered away to London ; became 

^ The following is the only stanza extant of this lampoon r-^ 

** A parliament member, a justice of peace, 
At home a poor scarecrow, at London an asse. 
If lowsie is Lucy, as some volke miscalle it, 
Then Lucy is lowsie, whatever befall it. 

He thinks himself great ; 

Yet an asse in his state. 
We allow by his ears but with asses to mate, 
If Lucy is lowsie, as some volke miscalle it, 
Then sing lowsie Lucy whatever befall it." W. L 



*80 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

a hanger-on to the theatres ; then an actor ; and^ 
finally, wrote for the stage ; and thus, through the 
persecution of Sir Thomas Lucy, Stratford lost an 
indifferent wool-comber, and the world gained an im- 
mortal poet. He retained, however, for a long time,^ 
a sense of the harsh treatment of the Lord of Charle- 
cot, and revenged himself in his v/ritings ; but in the 
sportive way of a good-natured mind. Sir Thomas is 
said to be the original Justice Shallow, and the satire 
is slyly fixed upon him by the justice's armorial 
bearings, which, like those of the knight, had white 
luces ^ in the quarterings. 

Various attempts have been made by his biogra- 
phers to soften and explain away this early transgres- 
sion of the poet ; but I look upon it as one of those 
thoughtless exploits natural to his situation and turn 
of mind. Shakspeare, when young, had doubtless all 
the wildness and irregularity of an ardent, undisci- 
plined, and undirected genius. The poetic tempera- 
ment has naturally something in it of the vagabond. 
When left to itself it runs loosely and wildly, and 
delights in everything eccentric and licentious. It is 
often a turn-up of a die, in the gambling freaks of 
fate, whether a natural genius shall turn out a great 
rogue or a great poet ; and had not Shakspeare's 
mind fortunately taken a literary bias, he might have 
as daringly transcended all civil, as he has all dra- 
matic laws. 

I have little doubt that, in early life, when run- 
ning, like an unbroken colt, about the neighborhood 
of Stratford, he was to be found in the company of 
all kinds of odd anomalous characters ; that he asso 

*' The luce is a pike or jack, and abounds in the Avon al>ouf' 
Charlecot. W. I. 



STRA TFORD-ON-A VON, KSl 

ciated with all the madcaps of the place, and was one 
of those unlucky urchins, at mention of whom old 
men shake their heads, and predict that they will one 
day come to the gallows. To him the poaching in 
Sir Thomas Lucy's park was doubtless like a foray 
to a Scottish knight, and struck his eager, and, as 
yet untamed, imagination, as something delightfully 
adventurous.^ 

^ A proof of Shakspeare's random habits and associates in his 
youthful days may be found in a traditionary anecdote, picked 
up at Stratford by the elder Ireland, and mentioned in his 
Pitduresque Views on the Avon, 

About seven miles from Stratford lies the thirsty little 
market town of Bedford, famous for its ale. Tvvo societies of 
the village yeomanry used to meet, under the appellation of the 
Bedford topers, and to challenge the lovers of good ale of the 
neighboring villages to a contest of drinking. Among others, 
the people of Stratford were called out to prove the strength of 
their heads ; and in the number of the champions was Shak- 
speare, who, in spite of the proverb that " they who drink beer 
will think beer," was as true to his ale as Falstaff to bis sack. 
The chivalry of Stratford was staggered at the first onset, and 
sounded a retreat while they had yet legs to carry them off the 
field. They had scarcely marched a mile when, their legs fail- 
ing them, they were forced to lie down under a crab-tree, where 
they passed the night. It is still standing, and goes by the 
name of Shakspeare's tree. 

In the morning his companions awaked the bard, and pro- 
posed returning to Bedford, but he declined, saying he had had 
enough, having drank with 

Piping Peb worth, Dancing Marston, 
Haunted Hilbro', Hungry Grafton, 
Dudging Exhall, Papist Wicksford, 
Beggarly Broom, and Drunken Bedford. 

"The villages here alluded to," says Ireland, "still bear the 
epithets thus given them : the people of Pebworth are still 
famed for their skill on the pipe and tabor ; Hilborough is nov/ 
called Haunted Hilborough ; and Grafton is famous for the 
Doverty of its soil," W. J. 



132 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

The old mansion of Charlecot and its surrounding 
park still remain in the possession of the Lucy family, 
and are peculiarly interestiijg, from being connected 
with this whimsical but eventful circumstance in the 
scanty history of the bard. As the house stood but 
little more than three miles' distance from Stratford. 
I resolved to pay it a pedestrian visit, that I might 
stroll leisurely through some of those scenes from 
which Shakspeare must have derived his earliest 
ideas of rural imagery. 

The country was yet naked and leafless ; but Eng. 
Ush scenery is always verdant, and the sudden change 
in the temperature of the weather was surprising in 
its quickening effects upon the landscape. It was 
inspiring and animating to witness this first awakening 
of spring ; to feel its warm breath stealing over the 
senses; to see the moist mellow earth beginning to 
put forth the green sprout and the tender blade : and 
the trees and shrubs, in their reviving tints and burst- 
ing buds, giving the promise of returning foliage and 
flower. The cold snow-drop, that little borderer on 
the skirts of winter, was to be seen with its chaste 
white blossoms in the small gardens before the cot- 
tages. The bleating of the new-dropt lambs was 
faintly heard from the fields. The sparrow twittered 
about the thatched eaves and budding hedges; the 
robin threw a livelier note into his late querulous 
wintry strain ; and the lark, springing up from the 
reeking bosom of the meadow, towered away into the 
bright fleecy cloud, pouring forth torrents ^f melody. 
As I watched the little songster, mounting up higher 
and higher, until his body was a mere speck on the 
white bosom of the cloud, while the ear was still filled 
with his music, it called to mind Shakspeare's exaui 
♦ite little song in " Cymbeline ' ""^ 



STRA TFORD-ON-A VON. Vd'sS 

* Hark ! hark ! the lark at heaven's gate sin^^ 

And Phcebus 'gins arise, 
His steeds to water at those springs, 
On chaliced flowers that lies. 

** And winking mary-buds begin 
To ope their golden eyes ; 
With every thing that pretty bin, 
My lady sweet arise ! " 

indeed the whole country about here is poetic 
ground: everything is associated with the idea of 
Shakspeare. Every old cottage that I saw, I fan- 
cied into some resort of his boyhood, where he had 
acquired his intimate knowledge of rustic life and 
manners, and heard those legendary tales and wild 
superstitions which he has woven like witchcraft 
into his dramas. For in his time, we are told, it was 
a popular amusement in winter evenings " to sit 
round the fire, and tell merry tales of errant knights, 
queens, lovers, lords, ladies, giants, dwarfs, thieves 
cheaters, witches, fairies, goblins, and friars." ^ 

My route for a part of the way lay in sight of the 
Avon, which made a variety of the most fancy dou 
blings and windings through a wide and fertile val 
ley ; sometimes glittering from among willows, which 
fringed its borders ; sometimes disappearing among 
groves, or beneath green banks ; and sometimes ram- 

' Scot, in his Discoverie of Witchcraft, enumerates a host oj 
these fireside fancies. " And they have so fraid us with bull* 
beggars, spirits, witches, urchins, elves, hags, fairies, satyrs, 
pans, faunas, syrens, kit with the can sticke, tritons, centaurs, 
dwarfes, giantes, imps, calcars, conjurors, nymphes, changelinga» 
incubus, Robin-good-fellow, the spoorne, the mare, the man in 
the oka, the hell-waine, the fier-drake, the puckle, Tom Thombe. 
bobgoblins, Tom Tumbler, boneless, and such other bugs, thai 
3sre were afraid of our own shadows- '^ W, L 



134 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

bling ovit into full view, and making an azure sweep 
round a slope of meadow land. This beautiful bosom 
of country is called the Vale of the Red Horse. A 
distant line of undulating blue hills seems to be iti> 
boundary, whilst all the soft intervening landscape 
lies in a manner enchained in the silver links of the 
4von. 

After pursuing the road for about three miles. I 
turned off into a footpath, which led along the bor 
ders of fields, and under hedgerows to a private gat( 
of the park ; there was a stile, however, for the ben- 
efit of the pedestrian ; there being a public right of 
way through the grounds. I delight in these hospita 
ble estates, in which every one has a kind of property 
— at least as far as the footpath is concerned. It in 
Bome measure reconciles a poor man to his lot, and, 
what is more, to the better lot of his neighbor, thus to 
have parks and pleasure-grounds thrown open for his 
recreation. He breathes the pure air as freely, and 
lolls as luxuriously under the shade, as the lord of 
the soil ; and if he has not the privilege of calling all 
that he sees his own, he has not, at the same time, the 
trouble of paying for it, and keeping it in order. 

I now found myself among noble avenues of oaks 
and elms, whose vast size bespoke the gTowth of 
centuries. The wind sounded solemnly among their 
branches, and the rooks cawed from their hereditary 
oests in the treetops. The eye ranged through a 
long lessening vista, with nothing to interrupt the 
view but a distant statue ; and a vagrant deer stalking 
Uke a shadow across the opening. 

There is something about these stately old avenues 
that has the effect of Gothic architecture, not merely 
Iroin the pretended similarity of form, but from theb 



STEA TFORD-ON-A VON. 135 

bearing the evidence of long duration, and of having 
had their origin in a period of time with which we 
associate ideas of romantic grandeur. They betoken 
also the long-settled dignity, and proudly concentrated 
independence of an ancient family ; and I have heard 
a worthy but aristocratic old friend observe, when 
speaking of the sumptuous palaces of modern gentry, 
that " money could do much with stone and mortar 
but, thank Heaven, there was no such thing as sud- 
denly building up an avenue of oaks/' 

It was from wandering in early life among this 
rich scenery, and about the romantic solitudes of the 
adjoining park of Fullbroke, which then formed a 
part of the Lucy estate, that some of Shakspeare'g 
commentators have supposed he derived his noble 
forest meditations of Jaques, and the enchanting wood 
land pictures in " As You Like It." It is in lonely 
wanderings through such scenes, that the mind drinks 
deep but quiet draughts of inspiration, and becomes 
intensely sensible of the beauty and majesty of nature. 
The imagination kindles into reverie and rapture ; 
vague but exquisite images J^nd ideas keep breaking 
upon it ; and we revel in a mute and almost incom- 
municable luxury of thought. It was in some such 
mood, and perhaps under one of those very trees 
before me, which threw their broad shades over the 
grassy banks and quivering waters of the Avon, that 
the poet's fancy may have sallied forth into that littlf 
song which breathes the very soul of a rui-al volup 
tuary — 

•* Under the green wood tree, 
Who loves to lie with me, 
And tune his merry throat 
Unto the sweet hird's note 



136 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

Come hither, come hither, come hither. 
Here shall he see 
No enemy. 
But winter and rough weather." 

I had now come in sight of the house. It is a 
iarge building of brick, with stone quoins, and is in 
the Gothic style of Queen Elizabeth's day, having 
been built in the first year of her reign. The exterior 
remains very nearly in its original state, and may be 
considered a fair specimen of the residence of a 
wealthy country gentleman of those days. A great 
gateway opens from the park into a kind of courtyard 
in front of the house, ornamented with a grass-plot, 
shrubs, and flower-beds. The gateway is in imitation 
of the ancient barbacan ; being a kind of outpost, and 
flanked by towers ; though evidently for mere orna- 
ment, instead of defence. The front of the house is 
completely in the old style ; with stone-shafted case- 
ments, a great bow-window of heavy stone-work, and 
a portal with armorial bearings over it, carved in 
stone. At each corner of the building is an octagon 
tower, surmounted by a gilt ball and weather-cock. 

The Avon, which winds through the park, makes a 
bend just at the foot of a gently sloping bank, which 
sweeps down from the rear of the house. Large 
herds of deer were feeding or reposing upon its 
borders ; and swans were sailing majestically upon its 
bosom. As I contemplated the venerable old mansion, 
I called to mind Falstaff 's encomium on Justice Shal- 
low's abode, and the affected indifference and real 
vanity of the latter : — 

•* Falstaff, You have a goodly dwelling and a rich. 
Shallow. Barren, barren, barren ; beggars all, beggars all 
Sir John : — marry, good air." 



STRA TFORD-ON-'A VON. 137 

What may have been the joviality of the old man- 
sion in the days of Shakspeare, it had now an air of 
stillness and solitude. The great iron gateway that 
opened into the courtyard was locked ; there was no 
show of servants bustling about the place ; the deei 
gazed quietly at me as I passed, being no longer 
harried by the moss-troopers of Stratford. The only 
sign of domestic life that I met with was a white cat, 
stealing with wary look and stealthy pace towards the 
stables, as if on some nefarious expedition. I must 
not omit to mention the carcass of a scoundrel crow 
which I saw suspended against the barn wall, as it 
shows that the Lucys still inherit that lordly abhor- 
rence of poachers, and maintain that rigorous exercise 
of territorial power, which was so strenuously mani- 
fested in the case of the bard. 

After prowling about for some time, I at length 
found my way to a lateral portal, which was the 
e/ery-day entrance to the mansion. I was courteously 
received by a worthy old housekeeper, who, with the 
civility and communicativeness of her order, showed 
ni3 the interior of the house. The greater part has 
undergone alterations, and been adapted to modern 
tastes and modes of living : there is a fine old oaken 
staircase ; and the great hall, that noble feature in an 
ancient manor-house, still retains much of the appear 
ance it must have had in the days of Shakspeare 
The ceiling is arched and lofty; and at one end is 
a gallery in which stands an organ. The weapons 
and trophies of the chase, which formerly adorned 
the hall of a country gentleman, have made way for 
family portraits. There is a wide hospitable fireplace, 
calculated for an ample old-fashioned wood fire, for- 
merly the rallying-place of winter festivity. On the 



138 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

opposite side of the hall is the huge Gothic bow- 
window, with stone shafts, which looks out upon the 
courtyard. Here are emblazoned in stained glass the 
armorial bearings of the Lucy family for many gener- 
ations, some being dated in 1558. I was delighted to 
observe in the quartering^ the three white liices^ by 
which the character of Sir Thomas was first identified 
with that of Justice Shallow. They are mentioned in 
the first scene of the "Merry Wives of Windsor,' 
where the Justice is in a rage with Falstaff for having 
" beaten his men, killed his deer, and broken into his 
lodge." The poet had no doubt the offences of himself 
and his comrades in mind at the time, and we may 
suppose the family pride and vindictive threats of the 
puissant Shallow to be a caricature of the pompous 
indignation of Sir Thomas. 

" Shallow. Sir Hugh, persuade me not : I will make a Star- 
Chamber matter of it ; if he were twenty John Falstaffs, he 
shall not abuse Sir Robert Shallow, Esq. 

Slender. In the county of Gloster, justice of peace, and 
coram. 

Shallow. Ay, cousin Slender, and custalorum. 

Slender, Ay, and ratalorum too, and a gentleman born, ma?*^ 
ter parson ; who writes himself Armigero in any bill, warrant- 
quittance, or obligation, Armigero. 

Shallow. Ay, that I do; and have done any time these three 
liundred years. 

Slender. All his successors gone before him have done 't, and 
all his ancestors that come after him may; they may give the 
dozen white luces in their coat. . . . 

Shallow. The council shall hear it ; it is a riot. 

Evans. It is not meet the council hear of a riot ; there is no 
fear of Got in a riot ; the council, hear you, shall desire to heai 
the fear of Got, and not to hear a riot ; take your vizaments in 
that. 

Shallow. Ha I o' my life, if I were young again, the sworo 
should end it I " 



STRA TFORD-ON-A VON. 139 

Near the window thus emblazoned hung a portrait 
6y Sir Peter Lely, of one of the Lucy family, a great 
beauty of the time of Charles the Second : the old 
housekeeper shook her head as she pointed to the pic- 
ture, and informed me that this lady had been sadly 
addicted to cards, and had gambled away a great por- 
tion of the family estate, among which was that part 
of the park where Shakspeare and his comrades had 
killed the deer. The lands thus lost had not been 
entirely regained by the family even at the present 
day. It is but justice to this recreant dame to con- 
fess that she had a surpassingly fine hand and arm. 

The picture which most attracted my attention was 
a great painting over the fireplace, containing like- 
nesses of Sir Thomas Lucy and his family, who in- 
habited the hall in the latter part of Shakspeare's 
lifetime. I at first thought that it was the vindictive 
knight himself, but the housekeeper assured me that 
it was his son ; the only likeness extant of the foi mer 
being an effigy upon his tomb in the church of the 
neighboring hamlet of Charlecot.^ The picture gives 

^ This effigy is in white marble, and represents the Knight in 
complete armor. Near him lies the effigy of his wife, and on 
her tomb is the following inscription ; which, if really composed 
by her husband, places him quite above the intellectual level of 
Master Shallow : — 

Here lyeth the Lady Joyce Lucy wife of Sir Thomas Lucy of 
Charlecot in ye county of Warwick, Knight, Daughter and heir 
of Thomas Acton of Sutton in ye county of Worcester Esquire 
who departed out of this wretched world to her heavenly king- 
dom ye 10 day of February in ye yeare of our Lord God 1595 
and of her age 60 and three. All the time of her lyfe a true 
and faythful servant of her good God, never detected of any 
cryme or vice. In religion most sounde, in love to her husband 
most faythful and true. In friendship most constant ; to what 
in trust was committed unto her most secret. In wisdom ox 



140 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

5L Ii\ely idea of the costume and manners of the time. 
Sir Thomas is dressed in ruff and doublet; whit^ 
shoes with roses in them ; and has a peaked yellow- 
or, as Master Slender would say, " a cane-colored 
beard.'* His lady is seated on the opposite side of 
the picture, in wide ruff and long stomacher, and the 
children have a most venerable stiffness and formality 
of dress. Hounds and spaniels are mingled in the 
family group ; a hawk is seated on his perch in the 
foreground, and one of the children holds a bow ; — * 
all intimating the knight's skill in hunting, hawking, 
and archery — so indispensable to an accomplishec 
gentleman in those days.^ 

I regretted to find that the ancient furniture of the 
hall had disappeared ; for I had hoped to meet with 

celling". In governing of her house, bringing up of youth in 
ye fear of God that did converse with her moste rare and singu- 
lar. A great maintayner of hospitality. Greatly esteemed of hex 
betters ; misliked of none unless of the envyous. When all is 
spoken that can be saide a woman so garnished with virtue as 
not to be bettered and hardly to be equalled by any. As shee 
lived most virtuously so shee died most Godly. Set downe by 
him yt best did knowe what hath byn written to be true. 

« Thomas Lucye." W. I. 
^ Bishop Earle, speaking of the country gentleman of his 
time, observes, ** his housekeeping is seen much in the different 
families of dogs, and serving-men attendant on their kennels \ 
and the deepness of their throats is the depth of his discourse, 
A hawk he esteems the true burden of nobility, and is exceed- 
ingly ambitious to seem delighted with the sport, and have his 
fist gloved with his jesses." And Gilpin, in his description of a 
Mr. Hastings, remarks, ** he kept all sorts of hounds that run 
buck, fox, hare, otter, and badger ; and had hawks of all kinds 
both long and short winged. His great hall was commonly 
Btrewed with marrow-bones, and full of hawk perches, hounds^ 
spaniels, and terriers. On a broad hearth, paved with brick, la] 
spme of the choicest terriers, hounds, a^d spaniels.** W I 



STRA TFORD-ON-A VON. 141 

fche stately elbow^hair of carved oak, in which the 
country squire of former days was wont to sway the 
sceptre of empire over his rural domains ; and in 
which it might be presumed the redoubted Sir Thomas 
sat enthroned in awful state when the recreant Shak- 
$peare was brought before him. As I like to dech 
(Mat pictures for my own entertainment, I pleased my^ 
self with the idea that this very hall had been the 
scene of the unlucky bard's examination on the morn- 
ing after his captivity in the lodge. I fancied to my- 
self the rural potentate, surrounded by his body-guard 
of butler, pages, and blue-coated serving-men, with 
their badges ; while the luckless culprit was brought 
in, forlorn and chopfallen, in the custody of game- 
keepers, huntsmen, and whippers-in, and followed by 
a rabble rout of country clowns. I fancied bright 
faces of curious housemaids peeping from the halt 
opened doors ; while from the gallery the fair daugh- 
ters of the knight leaned gracefully forward, eyeing 
the youthful prisoner with that pity " that dwells io 
womanhood." — ^Who would have thought that this 
poor varlet, thus trembling before the brief authority 
of a country squire, and the sport of rustic boors, was 
soon to become the delight of princes, the theme of 
all tongues and ages, the dictator to the human mind, 
and was to confer immortality on his oppressor by a 
caricature and a lampoon ! 

I was now invited by the butler to walk into the 
garden, and I felt inclined to visit the orchard and 
arbor where the Justice treated Sir John Falstaff and 
Cousin Silence -'to a last year's pippin of his own 
grafting, with a dish of caraways ; " but I had already 
spent so much of the day in my ramblings that I was 
obliged to give up any further investigations. When 



142 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

about to take my leave I was gratified by the clvii 
entreaties of the housekeeper and butler, that I worjld 
take some refreshment : an instance of good old hos- 
pitality which, I grieve to say, we castle-hunters sel- 
dom meet v/ith in modern days. I make no doubt it 
is a virtue which the present representative of the 
jLucys inherits from his ancestors ; for Shakspeare, 
STen in his caricature, makes Justice Shallow impor- 
tunate in this respect, as witness his pressing instances 
to Falstaff. 

" By cock and pye, sir, you shall not away to-night. ... 1 
will not excuse you ; you shall not be excused ; excuses shall not 
be admitted ; there is no excuse shall serve ; you shall not be 
excused. . . . Some pigeons, Davy ; a couple of short-legged 
hens ; a joint of mutton ; and any pretty little tiny kickshaws, 
tell William Cook." 

I now bade a reluctant farewell to the old hall. 
My mind had become so completely possessed by the 
imaginary scenes and characters connected with it, 
that 1 seemed to be actually living among them, 
Everything brought them, as it were, before my eyes r 
and as the door of the dining-room opened, I almost 
expected to hear the feeble voice of Master Silence 
quavering forth his favorite ditty : — 

" 'T is merry in hall, when beards wag all, 
And welcome merry shrove-tide ! '' 

On returning to my inn, I could not but reflect 
on the singular gift of the poet ; to be able thus to 
spread the magic of his mind over the very face of 
nature; to give to things and places a charm an<? 
character not their own, and to turn this " working 
day world '* into a perfect fairyland. He is indeed 
the true enchanter, whose spell operates, not upon 
the senses, but upon the imagination and the heart 



STRA TFORD-ON-A VON, 143 

Under the wizard Influence o£ Shakspeare I had been 
cvalking all day in a complete delusion. I had sur 
vejed the landscape through the prism of poetry 
which tinged every object with the hues of the rain 
bow. I had been surrounded with fancied beino-s: 
with mere airy nothings, conjured up by poetic power ; 
yet which, to me, had all the charm of reality. I had 
lieard Jaques soliloquize beneath his oak ; had beheld 
the fair Rosalind and her companion adventuring 
through the woodlands ; and, above all, had been once 
more present in spirit with fat Jack Falstaff and his 
contemporaries, front the august Justice Shallow, down 
to the gentle Master Slender and the sweet Anne 
Page. Ten thousand honors and blessings on the 
bard who has thus gilded the dull realities of life 
with innocent illusions; who has spread exquisite 
and unbought pleasures in my checkered path ; and 
beguiled my spirit in many a lonely hour, with all 
the cordial and cheerful sympathies of social life ! 

As I crossed the bridge over the Avon on my 
return, I paused to contemplate the distant church in 
which the poet lies buried, and could not but exult in 
the malediction, which has kept his ashes undisturbed 
in its quiet and hallowed vaults. What honor could 
his name have derived from being mingled in dusty 
companionship with the epitaphs and escutcheons and 
venal eulogiums of a titled multitude ? What would 
a crowded corner in Westminster Abbey have been, 
compared with this reverend pile, which seems to 
stand in beautiful loneliness as his sole mausoleum! 
The solicitude about the grave may be but the off- 
spring of an over-wrought sensibility ; but human 
nature is made up of foibles and prejudices ; and its 
best and tenderest affections are mingled with these 



144 WASHINGTON IRVING, 

factitious feelings. He who has sought renown about 
the world, and has reaped a full harvest of worldly 
favor, will find, after all, that there is no love, no 
admiration, no applause, so sweet to the soul as that 
which springs up in his native place. It is there that 
he seeks to be gathered in peace and honor among his 
kindred and his early friends. And when the weary 
heart and failing head begin to warn him that the 
evening of life is drawing on, he turns as fondly as 
does Tihe infant to the mother's arms, to sink to sleep 
in the bosom of the scene of his childhood. 

How would it have cheered the spirit of the youthful 
bard when, wandering forth in disgrace upon a doubt- 
ful world, he cast back a heavy look upon his paternal 
home, could he have foreseen that, before many years, 
he should return to it covered with renown ; that his 
name should become the boast and glory of his native 
place; that his ashes should be religiously guarded 
as its most precious treasure ; and that its lessening 
spire, on which his eyes were fixed in tearful contem- 
plation, should one day become the beacon, towering 
amidst the gentle landscape, to guide the literary 
pilgrim of every nation to his tomb ! 



i-iiiVK^jr. 



13 



L'ENVOY. 

Go, little booke, God send thee good 
And specially let this be thy prayere, 
Unto them all that thee will read or hear, 
Where thou art wrong, after their help to call, 
Thee to correct in any part or all. 

Chaucer's Belle Dame sans Mercic, 

Iir concluding a second volume of the Sketch Bookj 
the author cannot but express his deep sense of the ino 
dulgence with which his first has been received, and 
of the liberal disposition that has been evinced to treat 
him with kindness as a stranger. Even the critics, 
whatever may be said of them by others, he has found 
to be a singularly gentle and good-natured race; it 
is true that each has in turn objected to some one or 
two articles, and that these individual exceptions, 
taken in the aggregate, would amount almost to a 
total condemnation of his work; but then he has been 
consoled by observing, that what one has particularly 
censured, another has as particularly praised; and 
thus, the encomiums being set off against the objec- 
tions, he finds his work, upon the whole, commended 
far beyond its deserts. 

He is aware that he runs a risk of forfeiting much 
of this kind favor by not following the counsel that 
has been liberally bestowed upon him; for where 
abundance of valuable advice is given gratis, it may 
seem a man's own fault if he should go astray. He 
only can say, in his vindication, that he faithfuUj 
determined, for a time, to govern himself in his sec- 
ond volume by the opinions passed upon his first ; but 
he was soon brought to a stand by the contrariety of 
excellent counsel. One kindly advised him to avoid 
the ludicrous; another, to shun the pathetic; a third 



146 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

assured liim that he was tolerable at description, but 
cautioned him to leave narrative alone ; while a fourth 
declared that he had a very pretty knack at turning 
a story, and was really entertaining when in a pensive 
mood, but was grievously mistaken if he imagined 
himself to possess a spirit of humor. 

Thus perplexed by the advice of his friends, who 
each in turn closed some particular path, but left him 
all the world beside to range in, he found that to fol- 
low all their counsels would, in fact, be to stand still. 
He remained for a time sadly embarrassed; when, all 
at once, the thought struck him to ramble on as he 
had begun; that his work being miscellaneous, and 
written for different humors, it could not be expected 
that any one would be pleased with the whole; but 
that if it should contain something to suit each reader, 
his end would be completely answered. Few guests 
sit down to a varied table with an equal appetite for 
every dish. One has an elegant horror of a roasted 
pig; another holds a curry or a devil in utter abom- 
ination ; a third cannot tolerate the ancient flavor of 
venison and wild -fowl ; and a fourth, of truly mascu- 
line stomach, looks with sovereign contempt on those 
knick-knacks here and there dished up for the ladies. 
Thus each article is condemned in its turn ; and yet, 
amidst this variety of appetites, seldom does a dist 
go away from the table without being tasted and rel- 
ished by some one or other of the guests. 

With these considerations he ventures to serve up 
this second volume in the same heterogeneous way 
with his first; simply requesting the reader, if he 
should find here and there something to please him, to 
rest assured that it was written expressly for intelli' 
gent readers like himself; but entreating him, should 



U ENVOY. 

he find anything to dislike, to tolerate it, as one of 
those articles which the author has been oblig-ed to 
write for readers of a less refined taste. 

To be serious. — The author is conscious of the 
numerous faults and imperfections of his work; and 
well aware how little he is disciplined and accom- 
plished in the arts of authorship. His deficiencies are 
also increased by a diffidence arising from his peculiar 
situation. He finds himself writing in a strange 
land, and appearing before a public which he has 
been accustomed, from childhood, to regard with the 
highest feelings of awe and reverence. He is full of 
solicitude to deserve their approbation, yet finds that 
very solicitude continually embarrassing his powers, 
and depriving him of that ease and confidence whicli 
are necessary to successful exertion. Still, the kind- 
ness with which he is treated encourages him to go 
on, hoping that in time he may acquire a steadier 
footing; and thus he proceeds, half venturing, half 
shrinking, surprised at his own good fortune, and 
wondering at his own temerity. 



EXPLANATORY NOTES. 



THE AUTHOR'S ACCOUNT OF HIMSELF. 

The "Account" is modelled to some extent upon the first of 
Addison's Spectator papers, which should be read in this connec- 
tion. Irving's stjde owed much to the influence of Addison; an 
attempt to trace various points of resemblance would form a 
fruitful source of investigation for the student of The Sketch 
Book. 

PAGE 

3 my roving passion: Irving was one of the greatest travel- 
lers of his time. 

4 St. Petards or the Colosseum: Both these famous struc- 
tures are in Rome. St. Peter's, begun in 1506 and finished 
in 1590, is the grandest cathedral in the world. The Colos- 
seum was built by the Emperor Vespasian about SO a.d., 
and for nearly 400 j^ears was used for gladiatorial combats 
and spectacles of various kinds. It is said to have seated 
80,000 people. 

Questions and Topics for Study. 

What contrast is made by Irving between his own country 
and Europe? What reasons does he give for wishing to travel 
abroad? Do j^ou sympathize v/ith his reasons? 

Write an "Account'' similar to Irving's, with yourself or one 
of your friends as the central figure. 

THE VOYAGE. 

For purposes of comparison, read Franklin's account of his 
voyage to England in 1757, at the close of his Autohiography, 
and Dickens's description in his American Notes (ch. i, ii) of his 
journey from Liverpool to Boston in 1842. Irving's crossing 
occupied six weeks, Dickens's, fifteen days. The present average 
time from land to land is about five days. 

PAGE 

6 a lengthening chain: remembered from Goldsmith's 
The Traveller, 
quarter-railing : at the stern of the ship. 



EXPLANATORY NOTES. IX 

PAQfi 

9 lie at anchor on the banks: A most vivid description of 

an accident similar to that which is here set forth, may be 
found in Kiphng's Captains Courageous, chapter vii. 

put the ship about: swing around so as to have the wind 
on the other side of the sails. 

10 Deep called unto deep: See Psalms xlvii, 7. 

When I retired to my cabin: Read the following descrip- 
tions of storms at sea : Martin Chuzzlewit (Dickens), ch. xv; 
The Wrecker (Stevenson) ch. xii. Compare the methods of 
thes3 writers and see which you think is the most effective. 
If you care to make further comparisons, read Typhoon, by 
Joseph Conrad. 

11 Mersey : a river just north of Wales on the west coast of 
England. On it is situated the famous port of Liverpool. 

to whom the ship was consigned : the man who had ar- 
ranged for the disposal of the cargo. 

Questions and Topics for Study. 

Write the story of a voyage across the Atlantic to-day, pre- 
serving, as far as possible, the methods of Irving. Use your own 
experience if you can. 

Note the chief points of difference between a voyage now and 
one in Irving's time. 

A very sad incident is introduced at the close of this essa}^ 
Comment upon Irving's reasons for putting it in. 

RURAL LIFE IN ENGLAND. 

This study of national traits is a singularly clear and sympa- 
thetic piece of work, distinguished by keenness of observation 
as well as wide knowledge, 

PAGE 

13 wakes: The "wake " was an annual festival kept in com- 
memoration of the dedication of a parish church. 

cope with: meet, mingle with, 
humors: pecuharities. 

14 tact: natural taste, or tendency. 

huge metropolis : At the time of Irving's first visit, Lon- 
don was the largest city in the world, with a population of 
1,200,500. 

15 superficies: outside, surface. 

negative civilities : ordinary courtesies, which involve no 
personal effort. 

16 nice distribution: discriminating arrangement. 

17 box: hedge formed by low evergreen shrubs. 
providently: wisely, with forethought. 

19 the rural feeling that runs through British literature: It 
you care to test the truth of this remark, look up the "na- 



X WASHINGTON IRVING. 

PAGE 

ture" poems in some anthology like The Oxford Book of 
English Verse, 

elegant: well-educated, highly trained. Owing to care- 
less use, the word has suffered an unfortunate deterioration. 
20 ideas of order, of quiet; Tennyson expresses the same 
thought very beautifully in The Palace of Art: 

And one, an English home — gray twilight poured 

On dewy pastures, dewy trees, 
Softer than sleep; all things in order stored, 

A haunt of ancient peace. 

yeomanry: farmers. 

right of way: "A right of way is the privilege which an 
individual or a particular description of individuals have of 
going over another's grounds.'* 

immemorial: very old. 

Questions and Topics for Study. 

Describe a section of the American country-side with which 
you are familiar. Compare the general features with those pic- 
tured in Irving's essay. 

Discuss the effect of English country life upon the character 
of Enghshmen. 

Irving speaks of "those incomparable descriptions of Nature 
that abound in the British poets." Read the whole passage 
carefully, and test its truth by finding three or four "nature" 
poems from your general reading, or in a collection like Pal- 
grave's Golden Treasury, or The Oxford Book of English Verse, 

THE COUNTRY CHURCH. 
Note the excellent account of the contrast between thn 
"healthful hardiness" of real dignity and the morbid sensitive- 
ness of "spurious pride." Irving makes effective use of the 
weapons of sarcasm and humor. 

PAGE 

22 armorial bearings: family coats of arms. The whole pas- 
sage brings to mind Milton's lines in II Penseroso: 

the high embowed roof 
With antique pillars massy proof, 
And storied windows, richly dight, 
Casting a dim religious light. 

effigies: statues. 

23 see the hounds throw off: see them pick up the scent of 
the fox and start after him. 

24 engaging affability: attractive kindliness. 

25 pageant: show. 

26 on 'Change: the Royal Exchange in London. Here mer- 
chants and bankers met at certain hours to transact busi- 
ness. It corresponded to the Stock Exchange of the present 
day. 



EXPLANATORY NOTES. xi 

PAGE 

Lord Mayor's Day: November 9. The inauguration of 
the Lord Mayor is still celebrated in London with much 
pomp and ceremony. 

curricle : a light two-wheeled carriage, usually drawn by a 
tandem. 

outriders: men on horseback. 

pedantry of dress: ostentatious display, showiness. 
27 cant: slang. 

sorry: worthless* 

Questions and Topics for Study. 

Describe a "country church" which you have attended. 
Sketch, in the spirit of this essay, any peculiar features in the 
service or the congregation which may have struck your fancy. 

"I found as usual, that there was the least* pretension where 
there was the most acknowledged title to respect." Comment 
fully upon this statement. 

THE ANGLER. 
A peaceful little essay, quite in the vein suggested by green 
fields and quiet streams. 

PAGE 

29 urchin: mischievous small boy. 

30 cap-a-pie : from head to foot, 
fustian: strong, rough cloth. 

perplexed : a usage similar to that noted on page vi. 

32 Dee: a river north of Wales, in England. 

33 arrant poacher: see note, page v. 
35 piscatory lore : knowledge of fishing. 

forty pounds : A pound was about equal to five dollars. 

37 vagary: playfulness. 

38 berth-deck: in an old-time man-o*-war, the deck below 
the gun deck, reserved for the accommodation of the men. 

39 quadrant: a nautical instrument for calculating the posi- 
tion of a ship when at sea. 

40 oracle: authority. 

Sinbad: "Sinbad the Sailor," in the Arabian Nights, 
wandered far and wide and had many strange adventures. 

41 St. Peter's master: Christ. There is, possibly, a reference 
to the story found in the Bible — St, John, xxi. 

Questions and Topics for Study. 
Describe a fishing excursion of your own. Try to note, and to 
picture vividly, such details of scenery and events as impressed 

Irving speaks of his essay as a "rambhng sketch." Comment 
upon this phrase. Does he gain or lose by this discursive 
method? 



xn WASHINGTON IRVING, 

THE STAGE COACH. 

This is one of a series of Christmas essays contained in The 
Sketch Book, Irving and Dickens are the two writers who have 
interpreted most truly the Christmas spirit. With the essa3^s 
given here, you should compare Dickens's A Christmas Carol, 
and chapters xxviii and xxix of Pickwick Papers. Nothing can 
show more delightfully the genial human sympathy of the two 
great authors. 

PAGE 

41 one of the public coaches : Coaches at the time were es- 
tablished in well-organized companies and ran on regular 
routes. Dickens saw the last of the old coaching da^^s — 
"it will be long," said one of his friends, "ere we forget 
them." Examples of his descriptions of stage-coach jour- 
neys will be found in Pickwick Papers, ch. xxviii, and Mar- 
tin Chuzzlewit, ch. xxxvi. Another stirring account of this 
vanished mode of travel comes in Tom Brown's Schooldays, 
ch. iv. 

42 buxom: strong, vigorous. 

43 craft or mystery: trade, calling. Irving uses words which 
humorously imply the supposed dignity of the coachman's 
profession. 

potations of malt liquors : drinks of ale and beer, 
knowingly knotted: nattily tied. 
small-clothes: see note, page v. 

44 battening: stuffing themselves. 

45 as it whirls along: Ten miles an hour, including stops, was 
considered excellent time for a coach. 

juntos : see note, page i. 

sagest knot: wisest group. The phrase is, of course, 
ironical. 

The smith, etc. Note the fine picturesque quality of 
these few lines. 

46 square it among pies and broth: The four ingredients 
mentioned are divided among the eatables. 

Dice and cards benefit the butler: The butler profits by 
the tips put in the "butler's box" by the gentlemen game- 
sters. 
49 post-chaise : a conveyance for those who wished to travel 
more privately than was possible bj^ stage-coach. 

Frank Bracebridge : Irving describes an extended visit to 
the Bracebridge family in his Bracebridge Hall, published 
two years after The Sketch Book, The first essay contains 
the following passage: "The reader, if he has perused the 
volumes of the Sketch Book, will probably recollect some- 
thing of the Bracebridge family, with which I once passed £ 
Christmas." 



EXPLANATORY NOTES, xiii 

Questions and Topics for Study. 

Select the passages in The Stage Coach which seem to you 
most pleasing. Point out, as carefully as possible, how Irving 
produces his effects. 

Compare Irving's coachmen with those of Dickens in The 
Pickwick Payers, 

CHRISTMAS DAY. 

One feels that the jovial company described in this article 
must have been drawn from real life. In England, Christmas 
has been from time immemorial the great festival of the year, 
and doubtless Irving himself had enjoyed the open-handed 
hospitality of the season and the country. 

PAGE 

50 Herrick: Robert Herrick (1591-1674) wrote a number of 
lyrics marked by rare beauty and felicity of touch. 

51 grandee: nobleman. 

52 soiles: blesses. 

54 Sir Anthony Fitzherbert (1470-1538) was an author of 
some note. 

55 Sir Thomas Cockayne (1519-1592) was a famous author- 
ity on field sports. 

*^Markham*s Country Contentments: Jervaise Markham 
(1568-1637) was a noted writer on sports and pastimes 
and country life generally. 

old Tusser: Thomas Tusser (1520-1580), poet and writer 
on rustic subjects. 

56 deep, solemn mouths: The passage from Markham runs 
as follows: "If you would have your kennel for sweetness of 
cry, then you must compound it of some large dogs, that 
have deep, solemn mouths, and are swift in spending, which 
must, as it were, bear the base in the consort; then a double 
number of roaring and loud-ringing mouths, which must be 
the counter-tenor; then some hollow, plain, sweet mouths, 
which must bear the maui or middle part; and so with these 
three parts of music, you shall make your cry perfect." 

There is a fine description of such a "cry" in Shake- 
speare's A Midsummer- Night's Dream, IV, i, 110-131. 

a grizzled wig: gray. Wigs were commonly worn at the 
time in England. 

57 Caxton and Wynkin de Worde: William Caxton mtro- 
duced printing into England in 1470; Wynkin de Worde 
was his assistant. 

58 Druids: an ancient order of Celtic priests. 

Fathers of the Church: the most important early Chris- 
tian writers. 

folio: the largest size in which books were usually made. 

seal-ring: a large ring with a crest engraved upon it, 
used frequently for seahng letters. 



xiv WASHINGTON IRVING, 

PAGE 

59 old Cremona fiddles: violins made at Cremona, Italy, 
were famed for the excellence of their tone. 

60 Theophilus of Caesarea, etc. : These are writers on mat- 
ters of church usage and policy during the first few centuries 
after Christ. 

the Revolution: the Puritan Revolution which led to the 
establishment of the Commonwealth in England (1642- 
1649). 

61 the Restoration: The monarchy was restored under 
Charles II, in 1660. 

old Prynne: WiUiam Prynne (1600-1669), a Puritan 
author and politician. 

64 manor-houses: residences of noblemen, 
brawn: boar's flesh specially prepared. 

65 Christmas box : an earthenware box for collecting money 
at Christmas time. When the box was full, it was broken 
and the contents divided. 

66 the Romans : Britain was under Roman rule from about 
46 to 410, when Rome itself was threatened by the barba- 
rians, and the Roman power was withdrawn from the island. 

stout home-brewed: strong ale, made at home. 
Master Simon reminds us of Will Wimble, in Addison's 
Spectator, 

67 pandean pipes : a rather primitive wind-instrument, con- 
structed of a graduated series of tubes (wood or metal) 
closed at the lower end. 

affected: pretended. 

Questions and Topics for Study. 

Tell the story of some Christmas festivities in which you have 
taken part. Try to imitate Irving's manner of creating interest. 

Read Chapter xxviii in The Pickwick Papers, by Charles 
Dickens, and compare with Irving's essay. In what respects 
does Dickens's narrative differ from that of Irving? Which of 
the two do you prefer? Why? 

THE SPECTRE BRIDEGROOM. 

Of the three stories contained in the present collection, The 
Spectre Bridegroom combines least happily those elements which 
are characteristic of Irving's best work. While it concains 
touches of humor and suggestions of the supernatural, it lacks 
that pecuhar charm of the two Dutch stories which is the result 
of their author's intimate and personal sense of locality, and 
his love for scenes and types of character familiar to him from 
boyhood. 

In its original form, The Spectre Bridegroom is prefaced by a 
little essay called The Inn Kitchen. Here we learn that the 
teller of the tale is "a corpulent old Swiss, with a full rubicund 



EXPLANATORY NOTES. xv 

countenance, with a double chin, an aquihne nose, and a pleas- 
antly twinkling eye. I wish my reader could imagine," so runs 
the preface, the old fellow lolling in a huge armchair, one arm 
akimbo, the other holding a curiously twisted tobacco pipe 
decorated with silver chain and silken tassel, his head cocked on 
one side, and the whimsical cut of his eye occasionally, as he re- 
lated the following story." 

PAGE 

69 little German courts : Germany, at the period of the tale, 
was divided into a number of petty kingdoms. Life at one 
ot these httle courts" is amusingly described by Thack- 
eray m Vanity Fair, chaps. Ixii and Ixiii. 

71 stark: fierce, stern. 

72 proper punctilio: all the necessary formalities. 

73 the fatted calf had been kHled: an allusion to the Bible 
story of the Prodigal Son, SL Luke, xv, 11-32. 

76 holy fraternity of the convent: the monks. 
78 croslets: A "crosslet" was a shield with a cross painted 
upon it. 

jousting spears : spears for use in tournaments, 
sylvan warfare : hunting. 
81 cresset: an iron lantern constructed hke a cup, and con- 
taining a coil of pitched rope. 
83 sportive evasion: flight in jest. 

85 labors of the trencher :^work of eating. A " trencher " was 
a large wooden dish. 

rapt away: carried off by force. 

86 jack-boots: long, heavy riding-boots. 

Questions and Topics for Study. 

- Pick out the touches of humor in this story. Why is it not 
written in a more serious vein? 

What are the characteristics of a good "ghost story" ? 

WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 

We have in this essay a fine example of Irving's tender senti- 
ment and true feeling for the beauty and glory, as well as the 
deep pathos, of old memorials. The thought and the style will 
repay careful study. Westminster Abbey is different from any of 
the essays which we have read hitherto. 

The famous Abbey is filled with the monuments of men cele- 
brated in public life and the arts, and has become "a mausoleum 
of Enghsh royalty and genius." 

PAGE 

90 verger: a minor official of the church. 

91 arcades : series of arches supported on pillars. 



xvi WASHINGTON IRVING. 

PAGE 

93 Poets' Corner, at the end of the south transept, is filled 
with statues and memorials of English authors from Chau- 
cer to Tennyson. A bust of Longfellow was placed here 
shortly after his death. 

94 cognizance: crest. 

crosiers and mitres: the "crosier" was the bishop's staff 
of office; the "mitre/' his official head-gear. 

buckler: shield. 

morion: light steel helmet. 

Crusader : The Crusaders were knights who fought to free 
the tomb of Christ in the Holy Land from the domination 
of the Turks (Saracens). 
97 Henry the Seventh's Chapel : a richly beautiful structure, 
completed about 1520. The roof is a fine example of what 
is known as "fan-tracery." 
99 the haughty Elizabeth: Queen Elizabeth, who reigned 
from 1558-1603. The "unfortunate Mary" was Mary 
Stuart, Queen of Scots. She tried to win the throne of Eng- 
land from Elizabeth, was captured, held a prisoner for nine- 
teen years, and finally beheaded in 1587. Historians do not 
agree with Irving's estimate of the two queens. A very in- 
teresting discussion of the whole question may be read in 
Green's Short History of the English People. 

100 For in the silent grave: These lines are taken from a play 
by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, two contempo- 
raries of Shakespeare. 

101 Edward the Confessor: one of the early kings of England, 
so named because of his saintly life (1004-1066). 

the end of human pomp and power: Read, in connection 
with this part of the essay, the noble poem by Francis 
Beaumont called On the Tombs in Westminster Abbey. You 
will find it in Palgrave's Golden Treasury of Songs and Lyr- 
ics, Book I. 

102 Henry the Fifth was the warrior king who won the battle 
of Agincourt in 1415. The figure on his tomb originally had 
a head of solid silver, which was stolen sometime during the 
sixteenth century. 

103 sarcophagus: coffin. 

104 as a tale that is told: See Psalms, xc, 9. 

Questions and Topics for Study. 

The essay on Westminster Abbey has been termed "a noble 
example of writing in which sound and sense combine to produce 
a single impression." Select passages which justify this criti- 
cism. 

Write notes on the following: Poets' Corner. Henry VII. 
"The haughty Elizabeth." "The lovely and unfortunate 
Mary." Edward the Confessor. Henry V. 



EXPLANATORY NOTES. x\A 

THE MUTABILITY OF LITERATURE. 

This article discusses, with a kind of melancholy humor, the 
changes in hterary taste which occur during the course of cen- 
turies. It must be read carefully in order to appreciate the vein 
of delicate irony which runs throughout. 

PAGE 

105 pile : a stately building. 

chapter-house: building used for meetings of the "chap- 
ter" — the body of clergymen officially connected with a 
cathedral. 

106 polemical writers : wTiters of disputed questions of church 
doctrine. 

107 literary catacomb: burial place for books. The Cata- 
combs in Rome were underground passages used for centu- 
ries to receive the bodies of the dead. 

108 railings: complaints, scoldings. 

112 Egyptian obelisk: a lofty stone pillar, covered with hiero- 
glyphics, or "picture-writing." 

Runic inscriptions: "Runes" were letters used by some 
of the nations of Northern Eu ope in early times. 

Xerxes : the famous Persian monarch who invaded Greece 
with a huge fleet and army and was defeated at the Battle 
of Salamis (480 b.c.) 

Ii4 perpetuated by a proverb: Irving is thinking of the word 

"euphuism," derived from John Lyly's Euphues and His 

England. It came to signify a stilted and unnatural style. 

papyrus : writing material made from the inner skin of a 

water-plant. 

115 containing three or four hundred thousand volumes: 
What would Irving think of some of the great modern 
libraries, which house 1,000,000 and 2,000,000 books? 

117 plethoric fit: fat, self-satisfied laughter. 

119 tome: book, volume. 

Questions and Topics for Study. 

What is the underlying thought in this essay? How does 
Irving develop the idea? 

Read Dream Children, by Charles Lamb. Note that Lamb, 
like Irving, writes in a vein that is half playful and half melan- 
choly. Which of the two essays do you like best? Give some 
reasons for your choice. See if you can find any other essays or 
stories which are developed in a similar fashion. 

STRATFORD-ON-AVON. 

Irving writes as a Shakespearian enthusiast rather than as a 
Shakespearian scholar. His love for Shakespeare led him to 
cherish every scrap of tradition relating to the great dramatist. 



xviii WASHINGTON IRVING. 

Hence the essay before us should be read for the charming style 
and the appeahng pictures of places, and for its genuine appreci- 
ation of Shakespeare's work; but not as possessing the value of a 
contribution to our knowledge of Shakespeare's life. 

Those who are interested in the purely critical side of the mat- 
ter would do well to read The Facts about Shakespeare, by W. A. 
Neilson and A. H. Thorndike. 

PAGE 

120 territorial consequence : the importance of a land-owner. 
** Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn? " The quota- 
tion comes from Henry Fourth, Part /, III, iii, 79. 

121 David Garrick: a famous actor of the eighteenth cen- 
tury. Upon his death in 1779, Doctor John wrote an epi- 
taph in which it is said that "his death eclipsed the gaiety 
of nations." 

the house where Shakespeare was born: on Henley 
Street, known to-day as '*The Birthplace." 

122 relics : the reference is made in a spirit of pleasant irony. 
Sir Walter Raleigh : a brilliant personality of Ehzabeth's 

day. He w^as in his time soldier, sailor, statesman, and au- 
thor, and is said to have introduced tobacco into England. 
Shakespeare's mulberry tree: There is a tradition that 
Shakespeare planted a mulberry tree in his garden with his 
own hands. 

123 spit: a long steel rod, placed so as to revolve in front of 
the fire, for roasting meat. 

Aiabian enchanter : a reference to a story in the Arabian 
Nights. 

125 warming-pan : a brass pan with a cover fitted to it, and a 
long handle. It was filled with hot coals and used for warm- 
ing beds in cold weather. 

a gossip knot within its jambs : a talkative party enclosed 
by the sides of the deep fireplace. 

the long interval: as a matter of fact there was no such 
interval. The plays of Shakespeare have never been ne- 
glected at any period since his death. This may be shown 
clearly by the simple expedient of making a chronological 
list of the great editions of the plays, and another of the 
famous Shakespearean actors from Burbage, who belonged 
to Shakespeare's Company, down to the present day. 

126 funeral escutcheons: memorial tablets containing the 
coat of arms, and suspended over the tomb. 

127 four lines: These lines, in all probability, were carved on 
the stone to prevent the removal of the bones to the 
"charnal house" — a separate building outside the church. 
It was customary to make such a transference after a time. 

128 John Combe: a rich merchant of Stratford in Shake- 
speare's day. He is said to have been in the habit of lending 
money at exorbitant rates of interest ("usury"). 



EXPLANATORY NOTES, xiX 

PAGE 

129 deer-stealing: the picturesque tale of the deer-stealing 
rests upon a very slight basis of tradition. 

rough pasquinade : crude piece of satirical poetry. 

130 Justice Shallow: a character in Henry /F, Part II y and 
in The Merry Wives of Windsor, 

transcended: risen superior to. 

131 (footnote) the elder Ireland: The two Irelands, father 
and son, brought out in 1796 a volume of papers relating to 
Shakespeare's career, which were afterwards discovered to 
be forgeries. The son published a confession in 1805. 

135 Jaques: See especially the passage in As You Like It 
(II, 7), beginning: 

All the world's a stage, 
And all the men and women merely players. 

voluptuary: one who lives for pleasure only. 

Under the greenv/ood tree : See As You Like Itj II, 5. 

136 stone quoins: stone set in the brick- work at the corners 
of a building. 

barbican: tower to defend a gate. 

137 moss-troopers: raiders, robbers. Literally, raiders who 
took refuge in the swamps along the Scottish border. 

138 I will make a Star Chamber matter of it: That is, I will 
carry it to the highest court. The Court of Star Chamber at 
Westminster had jurisdiction over the more serious kinds of 
crime, such as conspiracy, riot, or offenses against the peace 
of the realm. Poaching could hardly be made "a Star 
Chamber matter." 

coram . . . custalorum . . . rotalonun : legal terms, amus- 
ingly mispronounced by the ignorant speakers. 

Armigero : one who has the right to bear arms, a gentle- 
man. 

139 Sir Peter Lely: a Dutch artist at the court of Charles II. 

140 roses: See note, page ii. 

cane-colored beard: the epithet should be spelled "cain- 
colored." Cain, in the old Miracle Plays, was represented 
with a red beard. 

ruff: a stiff frill worn around the neck. 

stomacher: richly ornamented front for a lady's dress. 

141 ^ whippers-in: men who keep the hounds from straggling 
in a fox-hunt. 

a last year's pippin: See Henry /F, Part II, V, ii, 2. 

142 by cock and pye, etc. : The passage is quoted from Henry 
IV, Part II, V, i. 

143 Rosalind: the heroine of As You Like It, 

Anne Page : a character in The Merry Wives of Windsor. 
venal eulogiums: mercenary praises, insincere epitaphs. 

144 factitious feelings: artificial, conventional. 



XX WASHINGTON IRVING. 

Questions and Topics for Study. 

What means has Irving adopted to make Stratford-on-Avon 
interesting to the casual reader, who may know nothing about 
Shakespeare? 

Find some instances of Irving's charm of style, as shown in 
this essay. 

Study the construction of the essay and make a careful topical 
outline. 

L'ENVOY. 

"L'Envoy,** or "L'Envoi," is an explanatory passage added 
at the end of a book or poem. It sums up what the author has 
tried to do, and bespeaks the kindly judgment of his readers. So 
here, in a manner half humorous and half serious, but wholly 
charming, Irving puts forth a plea for the generous reception of 
his Sketch Book, 

PAGE 

145 Chaucer's Belle Dame sans merci: The poem from which 
the lines are taken is wrongly attributed to Chaucer. It is a 
translation from a French poem. 

146 a devil : meat minced and highly seasoned with Cayenne 
pepper. 

Questions and Topics for Study. 

Why is Irving anxious about the reception of his book? Ex- 
plain what he means by saying "he ventures to serve up the 
second volume in the same heterogeneous way as the first." 

Read Kipling's V Envoi at the close of The Seven Seas. Com- 
pare with Irving as regards form, style, and thought. You 
might be interested, further, in reading Thackeray's farewell to 
his readers at the end o Vanity Fair and The Newcomes, 

GENERAL QUESTIONS. 

1. The "MoraHzing" of Irving. 

(He sometimes turns aside from the direct course of his 
narrative to develop some thought which has occurred to 
him. Find instances, and discuss the question whether 
they add to or detract from the general effect.) 

2. Irving's Use of "Atmosphere." 

(Read especially Riy Van WinkU and The Legend of 
Sleepy Hollow. How much do they owe to the scenery in 
which they are set, and the unusual types of character 
which they portray?) 

3. A Voyage up the Hudson. 

(Imagine yourself on a trading sloop in the early days, 
travelling from New York to Albany. Besides the sugges- 
tions which you may receive from The Sketch Book, you 
will obtain much help from the story of "Dolph Hey- 
uger," in Bracebridge Hall.) 



EXPLANATORY NOTES. xxi 

4. Irving's Use of the Supernatural. 

(Compare the three "ghost stories*' in this book. Are 
there any features which they have in common? What do 
you take to be the strong points of the stories? Wherein 
are they, m your opinion, not so strong? Compare Irving's 
methods with those which you find in any good modern 
story of the supernatural.) 

5. Epithets. 

(We find, in looking over the stories and essays, such ex- 
pressions as "fairy mountains," "sun-gilt pinnack's," 
"fretted roof," "foolish, well-oiled dispositions." Make'a 
study of these epithets and explain their value. Remember 
that Irving was a master in the choice and use of words.) 

8. Characters in The Sketch Book, 

(Discuss Irying's methods of presenting the Schoolboys in 
The SL ge Coach, the Squire, and such other persons as may 
especially have impressed you.) 

7. Humor, Irony, and Pathos, as employed by Irving. 

(Distinguish between Humor and Irony, and cite instances 
from The Sketch Book, Find three or four examples oi 
Pathos. Should you say that any of these quahties is char- 
acteristic of Irving's style?) 



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